Design Activism/2017/11 min/Reel № 17.001
ByBo-Won Keum
Bo-Won Keum on using design to help elevate the voices of prison inmates
Inspiration Is Nothing Without Action/Recorded 2017
A close reading, kept within reach.
Bo-Won Keum takes design activism as a lens on the larger question the festival keeps returning to: what design owes to the people and places it works among. The talk moves from specific projects toward a broader argument about practice.
Recorded in USA in 2017, the conversation is grounded in Bo-Won's own working method — the compromises, the constraints, and the moments where the work taught them something they didn't expect.
The closing turn is characteristic of the archive: less a conclusion than a provocation, handed to the audience to carry into their own disciplines.
The graphic designer worked on a monochromatic book that had handwritten book requests and thank you notes from US prison inmates.
About the speaker
Bo-Won Keum
Rhode Island/USA
Bo-Won Keum is a storyteller and graphic design graduate from The Rhode Island School of Design.
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