1.0. INVITATION: DEAR COMRADES!
Criptographies invites students from Taubman College and the School of Information to coinnovate mental health networks and mindful practices that locate design-research within complex forms of embodiment through disability, intersectionality, and neurodiversity perspectives.
Criptographies is an online Special Topics Seminar that develops design strategies and representational systems to explore spaces and virtual platforms that empower students in navigating mental health resources that promote well-being. The course seeks to de-stress the demands of cognitive labor, introduce you to creative practices and theories in Disability Studies, and to reposition mental health within wellness enhanced infrastructure.
Mental health is triggered and conditioned by dynamic stressors. Work-related stress is compounded when individual effort is overcome by systemic demands, and the failure of institutions to deliver actionable resources. The global pandemic and physical distancing, coupled with systemic racism and health inequity, are overwhelmingly stressful; but, also provide an opportunity to reconsider new modes of how we work that construct a deeper, and more just sense of well-being. Criptographies disrupts static, oppressive institutional objects, by repositioning the bio-psycho-social imaginary – vividly.