Lecture
Thursday 14 March 2024
Anab Jain
Get A Proper Job
"In the summer of 2009, Anab embarked on her first participatory futures project, inviting members of the public to share their hopes and dreams of a ‘better future’ with the wider community of Brentford, a borough in north-west London. Amongst the many hundreds of post-its full of aspirational green spaces, one response has stuck with her to this day. It simply said ‘Go get a proper job’.
Sure it could have been a flippant comment, we’ve all heard it before, yet in this case it felt unnerving. Not because it came out of spite, but rather from anger with the state of the world. As if to say, have you lost your mind? Do you really think asking a few local people about their hopes and visions of the future will change anything? Forget it mate, go get a proper job.
In her talk, Anab will share an in depth glimpse of her critical, speculative, experiential design practice Superflux, as well as her role as an educator at Design Investigations. In doing so, she will interrogate those pesky, recurring questions about ‘proper jobs’ and what it is that our shared responsibility as designers actually entails."
Sure it could have been a flippant comment, we’ve all heard it before, yet in this case it felt unnerving. Not because it came out of spite, but rather from anger with the state of the world. As if to say, have you lost your mind? Do you really think asking a few local people about their hopes and visions of the future will change anything? Forget it mate, go get a proper job.
In her talk, Anab will share an in depth glimpse of her critical, speculative, experiential design practice Superflux, as well as her role as an educator at Design Investigations. In doing so, she will interrogate those pesky, recurring questions about ‘proper jobs’ and what it is that our shared responsibility as designers actually entails."
About Anab Jain
"Anab Jain is a filmmaker, designer and futurist. She is the co-founder of Superflux, a pioneering speculative design and experiential futures company in London, UK, working for clients and commissioners such as V&A, Google, Red Cross, UNDP, IKEA, Deepmind and many more. Anab has delivered prolific talks at TED, Skoll, NEXT, House of Lords and House of Commons UK, and shown work at MoMA New York, V&A London, National Museum of China and Museum of the Future Dubai.
Anab is also a Professor for Design Investigations at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna."
