Global Exhange

Humanitarianism: that all human beings deserve respect and dignity and should be treated as such.

'I thought that God felt tired of people on earth here, felt tired of the bad deeds, I thought God got tired of us.' John Bul Dau, a Sudan refugee recites these words as he sits within his shared apartment of Syracuse New York. One of several rescued refugees, John contemplates his experiences. ‘If I get a good place, why not the others?’. The ‘others’ john refers to are the 27,000 refugee boys known as ‘the lost boys of Sudan. Orphaned and or displaced, these 27,000 boys are product of the second Sudanese civil war of which, 2 million men, women and children killed.

The infrastructures of our global economy are densely intertwined. Some of us attempt to change these systems to promote some form of equality both financially and culturally. Infrastructural changes are great challenges, but they must be addressed. Currently we face a major infrastructural challenge, industrial design. Many of us chose to study industrial design because we enjoy making utilitarian things. We believe that through design, we can solve problems both micro and macro.

Unfortunately, product design has created many of these problems. Humans are linear people who live in a cyclical environment. Over time, product design has transformed into a vicious circle of profit, disposal and gains. The Lost Boys of Sudan raise an important aspect of design. At the moment, 70% of Sudan’s exports are oil and gold. Currently, oil is absolutely essential pertaining to every part of product design. From sketching materials to computers, product, packaging, and shipping. Shipping, of which consumes the greatest amount of energy or oil.

The point is, the more we design the more we exploit foreign people and resources. The more shelter’s and services we provide to parts of Sudan, the higher the demand we place upon oil. Oil, of which has had major effects on Sudan’s history within the past 100 years, and a major cause of civil instability and greed. As designers, we must be careful and conscious of our impacts both through design, as well as daily impacts of our current lifestyles.

It is absolutely essential to help people in need. But first, we must explore and dissect the unfair infrastructural system we have created. We must redesign the global exchange of goods. We must be aware that the many problems we attempt to solve were created, paid for, and driven by us.