The co-founder of Les Sismo design agency, Antoine Fenoglio examines the integration of care ethics in design. In his collaborations with CNAM / GHU Paris and his hospital-based projects, he scrutinizes the procedures of restraint, which he seeks to shift towards care rather than seclusion.
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In the current climate of instability, new ways of thinking and acting are being considered. Among them are two attitudes of care for the living and the non-living. The planning of cities and territories is the privileged field of application of these concepts, symbols of a profound reconfiguration of our relationship to the world.
As multidisciplinary practices based on attention to a variety of intelligences are developing in response to contemporary complexity, the encounter between philosopher Cynthia Fleury and designer Antoine Fenoglio offers an example of an intersection of practices enriching a common vision around the “Design with Care” approach. This allows for “design with intent” based on the idea that fragility can help systemically extend the design practice to environmental and social issues. With the “proof of care” concept, experimentation itself becomes a form of care that leads to pondering modes of governance. Within this multidisciplinary approach of care, designers become integrators and act as diplomats between different types of expertise, building on their know-how in representation and prototyping.
The logic of domination is now broadly called into question and the pandemic crisis has indeed revealed the importance of everyday professions, giving new relevance to care ethics. These encompass a general attitude of care as well as an entire field of occupations and practices that are made invisible. Philosopher Sandra Laugier, who popularized the concept in France, traces its roots back to the feminist struggles that aimed to make another voice heard, in the opposition between ethics centered on good and evil, which are rather male and highly valued, and ethics centered on responsibility, which tend to be female and discredited. Care thus offers a systemic framework that makes it possible to take into account vulnerability and responsibility at all scales, from the household to the planet.