// teach somebody a skill (one on one), and ask them to teach you something in return // pros: to teach and be taught // cons: keeping up with it // This card’s title is a most explicit one. Teach somebody a skill, and ask them to teach you something in return. You may have an idea of what you want to learn from someone and ask them what they would like you to teach them, or you may come up with a suggestion of what you can offer to teach them. You can both go into it offering your skills to one another, or asking one another. It is an exercise that can help you find out secret talents and inspiration from new to you subjects. It is a great way to give yourself a pat on the back, teaching something that you are good at or passionate about is a very rewarding undertaking. This card is meant to be a one on one interaction over the course of a day. If you choose to extend it over several weeks or months, willingness might come and go and keeping up with it might be a struggle. Nevertheless, if you have the drive to teach each other things over a longer period of time, set up a day of the week (biweekly, or monthly) to meet up and keep up with it. This card believes in you!

// talk to someone outside of the department about your project // pros: perspectives // cons: managing difficult emotions // That person of choice could be all the way from mom to the engineering student at the pub, the importance of this is to view your project in a new perspective. Sometimes you might even have to translate it from overly academic/designerly language — you would be surprised how easily you can turn into the detached theorist by using this new-found language to package a commonsensical idea. Talking to someone from the outside is a way to find the life patterns we are all exploring as humans, and to find differences and similarities within our approaches of these explorations. It could help you define the questions: What is a designer? and What is design? (if you manage to do so, you can always shoot me a message with the answer) For all the good that this process could bring, there is an amount of difficult emotions that might come up. You could get frustrated, sometimes defensive. You would be coming from a community where everyone understands you implicitly to a new world of over-explaining and -defining. Be humble about your approach, curious about what the other has to share, and if it gets too much, leave the conversation. Yet, don’t be afraid to try it!

// ask a teacher (someone with more experience) about art/design projects related to what you are currently doing // pros: seeing things you might not otherwise // cons: inspiration rather than practical guidance // Many of us start an education in the arts with more interest and ambition than knowledge and skills. Maybe you have been stuck for awhile and decided to pull a card for guidance on your next step. This card prompts you to ask a teacher, mentor, or someone with experience in the field about artistic and designerly projects related to what you are currently doing. Sometimes, projects very closely related to ours can give us a sense of relief but may not inspire us further. In this way, the card calls on you also to consider asking someone whose expertise is far away from your subject, issue or medium. It is always rewarding to hear someone talking about their passion and you might find inspiration in the most unlikely places. What this card asks you to do is to pick a person who you admire and ask them about projects that they find relatable to you, or inspiring to them personally.

// have a dependence awareness day // pros: appreciation and awareness of the dependence we have and could have on each other // cons: a bit (or a lot) of organisation // A dependence awareness day could be anything from a day off with your group or class to an organised event where different people get together in hosting workshops and lectures around dependence. This card prompts you to take a day off to meditate on this topic and perhaps have a small ritual with yourself, friends, and community. A dependence awareness day is not bound to be an annual event, and it could be implemented once a month as a part of a weekly (“Tuesday”) meeting. From the willingness of a few people, you can make it happen!

// take a break // pros: rest! // cons: too much of everything is bad, I guess (but if you feel like you need a break you probably do) // If you feel like you need a break you probably do. If you feel like you need a break you probably do. If you feel like you need a break you probably do. This card prompts you to take one now, or at least remember to do so often. It is a lot of work to be dismantling norms we have been taught, recognizing the structures that control our behavior, that oppress and exclude, and further, not wanting to sit still with this knowledge but take action in changing collectively for the better. You need rest and you need breaks. Don’t be hard on yourself and on your groups and communities, you are doing a lot. Take the break in your own way, or pick a Bonding Activities card for some break suggestions.

// a sharing circle (on feelings about the (group) work) // pros: unveiling misunderstandings, acknowledging common feelings // cons: feelings and thoughts are not always neatly sorted into a “life” and a “work” boxes // This card prompts you to share feelings about work. In group work it is quite easy to spot frustration but this sharing circle could still shed a light on different interpretations of the same day. Make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak in sharing first impressions. It is useful to do it at least once a day, at the end or beginning, for being able to make changes to the schedule or pace. It is the hardest to navigate and approach hard feelings that are not shared among everyone. Remember the guiding principles of trust, wellbeing and dependence. Trust in each other that everyone does as much as they are capable of. Act with a mindset that promotes wellbeing over production. Be dependable, so that when you need to, you would have someone to depend on. If you aren’t doing group work it is even more important to share frustrations with workload because it may not be so visible when we are all caught up in our work that others are experiencing the same frustrations over tight deadlines, incomprehensible academic literature and a packed schedule. The more we share, the more change we can instigate.

// rest // pros: a necessity of any organism // cons: letting go of self-deprecation // The Rest card comes up to remind you of the vital importance that rest plays in growing, learning, living. Rest can be both individual and collective. If we are reflective of our bodily experience, we know when and for how long to rest. This deck contains “take a break” cards which in difference to this card are to be taken as an immediate prompt to take a break. There is a “procrastination” card which serves as an acknowledgement for your efforts and a reminder of what procrastination signals and also what it can bring about, since it can still be a beneficial action just not the one that you are “supposed to do.” In contrast to this, the Rest card is the overarching idea of resting, of planning for and valuing rest time. Look back at the past week, then forward to the next and notice the times when you have rested/would rest. This is for all the planned but also for all the spontaneous times when you would purposefully cease to do work and rest. Have these times been permeated by guilt for not working? Have you rested by doing something else that is productive? This card is here to remind you that it is not optimal to wake up tired. In order to be dependable and dependent on people, you need to rest and you need time for yourself.

// impersonal silence, no sharing? // pros: creating a space for learning and collaboration // cons: an ongoing discussion // Building a close collective of people necessitates not only listening but taking action. More often than not, we take an action as a team to alleviate immediate stresses but we do not keep up the discussion and we do not make core changes to deal with long-term oppressive behavior. This card calls on you to examine whether there has been a sort of impersonal silence when you gather with your group, classmates, community. Have there been heated discussions that have come to a halt? Would you find it disruptive if someone brought up a certain issue, since it has already been talked over? If the answer is “yes,” there is a high chance that the people who have initiated this discussion before, now suppress these same feelings because the issue was either dismissed or handled inadequately. Give space for a discussion on feelings and actions by organizing a meeting, or by asking the initiators of previous discussion if they think that the subject was handled properly or if they feel misunderstood.When approached with care, an issue becomes a catalyst to creating a space for learning and collaboration where every individual has something to teach. Keep in mind that this is a reminder card to check in, but this checking in could necessitate further action on everybody’s side.

// “procrastinate” // pros: kindness to yourself // cons: self-deprecation, guilt // This card is very similar to a “take a break” card, but instead of a prompt for a break, it is an acknowledgement for your efforts. You have been working hard on questioning and criticizing past notions of yourself and of the societies and communities you come from and dwell in. You are learning constantly, and creating, this takes much effort and is oftentimes accompanied by intense feelings of grief, guilt, shame, realisation, euphoria.If you feel like you have been procrastinating, if you have been staring at the ceiling, or doing things for yourself instead of “what you were supposed to,” this card is saying: Go You! This is not procrastination, this is your body telling you that it needs time for unpacking, resting, reflection. You can procrastinate in many ways by doing things that are beneficial for you, and in that way beneficial for others around you.You are not lazy! You are not a failure! You have been working hard on many domains of life, and the notion of “what you were supposed to do” is a false one. Take the time to recognise your efforts for yourself, your projects, your friends, family, partners, wellbeing, learning, social gatherings, community, etc, etc. Take the time to treat yourself with kindness! This card is very proud of you!

// give up your project to the commons // pros: developing multi-perspective projects // cons: the system is underdeveloped // The commons are the things we share as a collective. This card refers to the +change commons which is a small and underdeveloped part of this thesis project. It is an open and living archive of projects that explore resilience and sustainability across societies, communities and groups of humans and more-than-humans, hence, the topic of +change. It is essentially a folder of projects with research, literature and hands-on experimentation on them, which you can take up to continue developing as a part of a university course or as a project outside of academia. These projects have been started and placed into the archive by members of the +change community. It is now merely a space, a seed for something bigger to grow, but essentially it is still just holding onto the threads of willingness for participation. This card prompts you to add a project of yours to it. You can also browse through it for inspiration. But more than that, if you feel inclined to do so, it can be an encouragement to think of ways of recirculating it and keeping it active, or design a completely different system with the same idea in mind: that any +change project should move across a community of people working together, rather than be placed in a single portfolio.

// ask someone for peer tutoring // pros: clearing out your concept, more time for tutoring // cons: taking too much time // Tutoring is about a guided exploration of yourself and your undertaking. This card asks you to seek this guidance from people around you, instead of living and working by yourself or waiting for a structured institutional counseling system. Tutoring is about making decisions within your project or issue, clearing out concepts and looking at the sides that you haven’t yet. A well-developed project is one that is looked through many different lens. In academia, tutoring from supervisors and mentors is usually under a very small amount of time for what a good tutoring session requires. In the optimal case, one should be able to answer most of the questions through discussion (or monologue) during the tutoring session, instead of just coming out of it jarred with possibilities and ambiguous questions. A tutoring is about understanding your issue through talking while the other person asks questions to understand it. In that sense, anyone is capable of tutoring, they just need to know what you need from them and have in mind that it might take an hour or two for a full session. People in your close circles with whom you already share a language would be the easiest to approach and would “get the job done” the fastest. It is always useful to talk to people from the outside of your discipline, community, etc., but this card rather prompts you to seek guidance with people who know you and your project. The more peer tutoring sessions you have together, the more they will understand and help you.

// group flow // pros: good workflow for everyone // cons: do not expect to be rewarded for it from the outside // We are not the same. Our needs and capabilities come from our different backgrounds, current feelings, beliefs and unexpected hurdles. To a have a good workflow as a group means to have conversations about each other’s strengths and limitations and to adjust the schedule according to these. It is to put wellbeing above production. This card encourages you to strengthen the bonds within your group by having a regular conversation, as well as to trust each other. In doing so, your work will come from a place of authenticity and reflect your approach. Remember to ask yourselves if it is really sustainable work that you are creating and doing, if working is an inherently unsustainable effort for some. A good group flow is to acknowledge that a slow day, a day of “procrastination” (check Procrastination card – 11 in Taking Care) is just as good, productive, allowed as any other. The decisions you make in preserving individual wellbeing might slightly or majorly diverge from set norms, in that sense, this card comes with its warning to be honest in your communication with people you work with, evaluators and bosses for some of your decisions over others. By valuing wellbeing, learning and a sense of community over production and deliverables as a group, you are likely to create a ripple-out effect to other groups, communities, even society. Don’t underestimate the power of a strong collective!

// a sharing circle (on feelings in general) // pros: understanding and compassion // cons: takes a little time off the busy and important day // This card prompts you to sit together and talk about your feelings. Do so in a way in which everyone can share without interruption. You can always offer support and compassion right away — sometimes our feelings are directly tied to issues that can be solved with collective action in support of the hurting person. Other times, all one can do is listen. This is the easiest way to treat each other with kindness and compassion. One can often “read the room” for difficult emotions such as stress and irritability, but knowing where that comes from, and by giving it space in the schedule, will make it visible and acknowledged. A sharing circle is a nice ritual to pick up for the start and end of each day, since a lot of times we don’t have time for unpacking and reflection with strenuous days, weeks and months of work. It does take some time away and depending on the size of the group it can be around half an hour. The more you do it, the more intuitive you will become with it. After after having done it continuously for awhile you will be able to acknowledge that skipping it once in order to meet a deadline is not a disaster. This card is collective-oriented, but if you happen to pick it up, acknowledge your feelings right now. Use it as a prompt to acknowledge how you feel at the start and end of each day, be it by journaling, or just by laying down to stare at the ceiling.

// inherent hierarchy in your group? (class or groupwork) // pros: diverse collaboration // cons: a long process which consists of ongoing actions and discussion // This card calls for you to examine the core of the Diverse Collaboration deck: are we really an inclusive community? A non-hierarchical structure is important for a diverse and inclusive collective. Such structure is the acknowledgement that everyone has something to teach. Since power can manifest and control in different ways, it is up to you to figure out where it comes up in your group. Ask and listen. If there is open communication the ones who feel in some way underappreciated, even oppressed, would speak up. Most times a sharing circle works well in terms of listening, then make sure to follow up with discussions and actions. At other times you might need to retreat to a one on one talk or an anonymous written sharing. Find inspiration in the Bonding Activities cards. This card comes up as a reminder to examine underlying power structures in your collective. If you find its theme hard to navigate, you can always pull up more cards for suggestions on how to approach it.

// don’t create, discover // pros: openness and empathy, a less stressful approach to being a designer // cons: questioning of design/art as a discipline // There are countless methods and books on being more creative, on training the creative muscle. Ultimately, people in creative disciplines are doing more work than they are paid for, pushed to create the new, innovate, get us out of messes created by exploitative economic models, create needs. The origin of design as a discipline is inevitably to educate a mass of producers for the ever-consuming market. So, how do we deal with designing empathetically, openly, and addressing actual needs, when all the tools we are given are on how to produce (at best a bandaid) fast?This card asks you to acknowledge the possibility that if you are designing with a community, you will rather not be creating innovative solutions for them, but discovering what already works there and strengthening that. If you are stressed about whether you are creative enough or smart enough to be a designer, don’t fret! You do not have to be any of that in order to make a positive change. All you need to do is to listen and collect. By asking whether you are a creative, a designer, you are missing the point. A very small part of working with complex problems deals with answering and fixing, the majority of what you will be doing is to ask. This card is calling onto you to appreciate learning and discovering above mindless production.

// having a shared tea/coffee/snack corner // pros: a place of nurture and care for each other // cons: it needs regular attention, care and filling up // Having a shared food and beverages corner is very simple yet so giving. During dark winter days and gloomy autumn, a community food corner is a haven. Food is basic and often we forget to nurture ourselves properly because of too much work. Self-deprecation and self-punishment come out of highly individualised labour and reward system. It is important to sleep, take breaks, cook and eat, spend time with people, and we know that, but in practice it is so easy to overdo work and not allow ourselves the good things in life. In times like these, in its most profound form, a community food corner is what others do for us that we forget to do for ourselves. In this way, it becomes not only a want but a need. Make sure to restock it together, it doesn’t have to be a complex system, especially if it is for a group of around twenty. Some tea bags and a packet of cookies are enough to make it a better day!If you don’t have a shared food corner, get onto it. If you do, take some time to see how you can improve it, clean it up a little, bring something special, perhaps bake something yourself to share with others.

// is literature too incomprehensible? // pros: deep rather than surface learning // cons: acknowledging your personal struggles as universal requires strength // Much of the academic and philosophical literature that we get within a university education is hard to comprehend as a concept, let alone when it is put into a complicated and inaccessible language which we have yet to learn. Education should be accessible to anyone who wants to receive it. This card asks you: Did you understand what this last text they assigned you was about? Did you kind of get it and you decided not to say anything, you will still pass anyway? Acknowledging your personal struggles as universal is very hard introspective work and it requires the strength and humility to speak with others about some of people’s universal demons, being stupid and unrelatable. You are not, and this phenomenon is way more relatable than the opposite. Take this card as an inspiration to be honest with yourself about your learning experience, and then, to reach out to others. There have been multiple times when with my classmates’ strength and humility to bring this up, we have collectively refused to read a piece of literature or got an explanatory lecture on it. Sometimes the explanatory lecture is not very explanatory at all, keep talking about accessible learning until it gets out of the taboo box. It is more likely that your teachers would like for you to learn rather than suffer. At the end of the day, if the institution doesn’t budge, do a group reading. It is very helpful to read aloud and be read to. It also becomes a social setting for discussion not only of what the theory means, but also to criticise it.

// go for a walk+talk with a peer // pros: guidance, deeper understanding of your situation // cons: you need to be aware that it takes time // This card takes you out to the nearest forest, park, or empty street with a peer to talk. Make sure that it is a space that does not clutter you with information, for that reason, forests and parks are a good idea. It is very simple and it may look like it would take valuable time off your day, but it is a valuable undertaking in itself. Take this chance to not be stuck in one place but to roam around while talking. In many ways, this talk might overlap with a tutoring session, since most of stresses come from work. Let it be a space and time for whatever that needs to come out, and approach it with no expectations.

// post in a student-sourced library of references // pros: seeing things you might not otherwise // cons: inspiration rather than practical guidance // A student-sourced library of references can be anything from a shared folder on a cloud, a physical bulletin board or just a post in a social media group of the +change community. Its idea is to be a collection of topics with respective references, and these are just a few suggestions. However, what this card simply prompts you to do is to ask your bigger community for projects and literature on the current subjects you are tackling. We come from vastly different backgrounds, from cultures and life experiences to hobbies, skills, knowledge. You don’t know until you ask! Take this as your sign to post your issue or open a discussion during a weekly (“Tuesday”) meeting. More than that, if you feel inclined to do so, this card can be an encouragement to think of ways of recirculating and keeping active a student-sourced library of references, or to design a system of that sort.

// listen without judgement and waiting for your turn to speak // pros: understanding and compassion, assimilating different perspectives // cons: make sure that you get the same in return // This card is a prompt for you to examine whether you are listening to others without judgement. This is a big statement and can cause misconceptions, but to listen without judgement doesn’t necessarily mean not being critical of what the other person is saying. It is rather a prompt to approach a person as a teacher, to receive their knowledge and perspective, and to criticise it only after you have understood it. To listen without judgement means to keep asking questions until you understand the other side. It comes from a curiosity to learn.Alternatively, the card encourages you to recognize if you are getting the same in return. Are you being listened to? Is the other person only waiting for you to finish in order for them to speak? Members of groups who are used to being listened to can take your curious approach for granted. A remark on that should be enough to make the other person aware of how they are coming across. Accept that they will take time to change their behavior, as well as that you don’t need to micromanage them every step of the way. If this lack of listening without judgement persists, it becomes a larger discussion on prejudice and oppression. It is then not simply a change of behavior but a change of mindset. This undertaking will not be easy but conversations (with methods to have them, such as these cards) are an effective way to go about it.

// make a ritual to start and end the day with (e.g. a sharing circle, a sound, a chant) // pros: a signifier of the start and end of work, a way to connect with each other // cons: could become a chore // Rituals are a way to give space to important feelings, thoughts and actions which we might otherwise omit. A sharing circle of the day’s thoughts about work and feelings is a great ritual to adopt. The first one might take a bit of time, but once you get into the flow of doing them, they won’t take much time. A part from sharing circles the ritual can be as simple as lighting a candle and blowing it out, playing a (pseudo) gond, listening to a song/playlist, making a collage together, having tea. Apart from a space for feelings and thoughts its function could be as a signifier for the start and end of the workday. Often, we extend the workday for ourselves under the premise that what we work with is also our hobby and passion. That is all very well, but it does take a toll on our wellbeing, relationships and could be easily overdone thus leading to burn-out. It is a wonderful thing to be in a flow, but this is different. If you extend your time of actively researching, creating and making everyday, then you will expect this of yourself even when you need rest. This is why you might start to punish yourself for taking breaks, resting and reflection, putting it all under the umbrella of “procrastination.” A ritual is one thing you can try in order to signify when the workday is over. From then on, anything you do, should not be done with the expectation to progress with work but rather for the pure enjoyment of it. A warning of this card is to not push a ritual if it doesn’t work for you/your group. It might take too much time, it might be too superficial, it might just not do the job. A ritual shouldn’t turn into something you have to do, but something that you want to do. Remember that the willingness to do it is more important than what the action itself would be. If willingness is present, you can always try another ritual or alter the one you have been doing.

// organise Tuesday meetings for at least four weeks // pros: community bonding // cons: organisation needs some work // Tuesday meetings are not bound to a Tuesday, it can be any workday of the week. They are a designated afternoon for the community, an open space for a time of bonding, skills- and knowledge-sharing, dwelling together. They are an afternoon off, you can choose to participate in it fully or just for the first hour of lunch break. It can often extend to the evening and can include activities such as cooking together, mending, knitting, painting, hosting small lectures for each other, movie screenings, and more. The best scenario is for this to be an institutionally established event, then it becomes a part of the schedule for all classes. But since this might take time to (re-)establish, you can begin by getting together and making a simple schedule for four weeks ahead (four Tuesdays) of which class would bring snacks and find people (or yourselves) who would like to host some making/playing/resting activities.

// trust // pros: putting an adequate amount of pressure on yourself and others // cons: letting go of self-importance // The card of Trust is holding your hand in the process of letting go of doubt in other people. Having trust in others creates a disposition in them to trust themselves. It is a long process and you would allow yourself slip-ups in figuring out how to give space and importance to others in doing a job that you could easily get done. But also, how to trust in yourself to accomplish the things that others believe to be in your capabilities. Be open and curious as to what you can learn from the other, and trust in your qualities of being a teacher as well. Trust can be strengthened in many ways, through sharing feelings and experiences, through time spent in dwelling together, through noticing and remarking on the qualities of one another. A very simple exercise is to write to each other qualities that you think each person brings to the team as well as the qualities you believe to bring. It is also a very powerful thing to just say: “I trust you.” Trust is not about putting expectations on others which they cannot reach, it is about a universal sort of trust in each others’ processes of learning and making, as well as trust in the group as a collective organism that lives and fixes itself through the openness, honesty and trust of every individual.

// try to collaborate with a person from a different class // pros: knowledge of what is to come and a revisiting of what was before, a way to identify structural problems // cons: too little time to attempt it all the way // The design +change course passes through ethical and philosophical themes that you will come across throughout your life. The way in which the modules are structured leaves little time for rest and unpacking, ultimately pushing you to leave one big subject for the next. As a student in the second or third year it might be useful to collaborate on a project with somebody going through a module that you have already passed in a previous year. It could also be very fruitful for a student who is just encountering the topic to learn more from another’s research. Since there is so little time for a module and so much to do that it leaves you stressed, attempting this quest all the way would be a challenge. If is seems too burdensome, you can instead take this card as a reminder to reach out to classmates across the years for small help with peer tutoring, holding a camera, or just a snack break. This is also a way to find out what things are personal struggles and what are structural problems; and within a dependent community the personal struggles are collective.

// take a break // pros: rest! // cons: too much of everything is bad, I guess (but if you feel like you need a break you probably do) // If you feel like you need a break you probably do. If you feel like you need a break you probably do. If you feel like you need a break you probably do. This card prompts you to take one now, or at least remember to do so often. It is a lot of work to be dismantling norms we have been taught, recognizing the structures that control our behavior, that oppress and exclude, and further, not wanting to sit still with this knowledge but take action in changing collectively for the better. You need rest and you need breaks. Don’t be hard on yourself and on your groups and communities, you are doing a lot. Take the break in your own way, or pick a Bonding Activities card for some break suggestions.

// make a lecture/workshop on something that you know about and want to share // pros: teaching // cons: planning and organisation // Teaching is a rewarding process of sharing knowledge, understanding depper what you already know, and often, receiving new perspectives. This card asks you to objectively look at your strengths, interests and knowledge. If something already pops out, this is your green light to plan a teaching session. It could be from a lecture at a weekly (“Tuesday”) meeting to a small get-together. If you find it hard to look at yourself as a professional in any sphere, don’t let that stop you. Plan a teach together and learn together event on a topic of your interest. The essence of this card is to remind you that you have something to teach, everybody does. Education doesn’t have to be only formal, you can teach and be taught at the same time. You don’t have to be an expert in a sphere to share a few curious facts and create a conversation around a subject. Take trust in yourself and the support of your community!

// too little tutoring? ask for more // pros: more and better guidance from teachers // cons: it may still not be helpful // Tutoring is all about guidance for you within your project and issues. Oftentimes, there is not enough time to get constructive feedback from teachers, putting both us and them in a situation where we have to make a choice between what to omit and what to focus on. Tutoring sessions then become less intuitive and giving, and more structured and restrictive. How you ask for more tutoring can be different depending on your situation. You might get together as a class and simply request more tutoring sessions or a different set-up for an already scheduled tutoring day. Remember that you are the experts of your situation and you can have direct control of how you want to be helped. On top of that, teachers want to be there for you in the best way they can. It is likely that people would like to have more guidance, but if you find yourself alone in this quest, whether because of lack of willingness or lack of time to organise everyone, take this card to ask yourself what you need help with. It might be your project, prospective career, portfolio, job opportunities, a skill you would like to learn/develop. Take this question to a teacher and ask for guidance. If you know that there is interest from others in the same subjects, perhaps you can make a request for a lecture or a workshop after school. Make sure to plan it, either during a weekly (“Tuesday”) meeting or if it will during off-work hours, organise the space, music, food and drinks. Most people like to share skills and knowledge; as long as your request comes from a sincere place and you back it up with a bit of planning, it is very likely that it will happen.