When We Have a Studio…
I love to say that I hate work. Or that I hate working. Or rather, that I hate having a job. My current 9 to 5 has felt like the barrier to many of my other interests. Thus my likely flawed, potentially naive solution: speculative thinking about a studio which addresses my work-related qualms.
The channel “When we have a studio” is a list of reminders, critiques, and aspirations: reminders of the parts of design that brought me to the discipline, critiques of the capitalist structures of wage labor, and aspirations of a studio that resists those structures.
Don’t you love those? I have never once purchased those strawberry candies in cellophane wrappers, but I am always pleased when I encounter a bowl of them. Integral component to a design studio.
Remaining small can allow for care and empathy in an organization.
Reject modernity! Some people just need to concentrate. In a world of open offices, I occasionally yearn for the privacy of my own cubicle.
Unpaid internships are a scam for rich kids! I can’t count the number of times I’ve been excited for an internship opportunity just to find out it was unpaid or paid an unlivable wage.
We’d work out the kinks. Why shouldn’t the workers own their company? I found myself frustrated with the disconnect between the decision makers and myself as the designer. I don’t want to lose sight of how I have felt as a junior designer.
I struggle with some of the content in this channel. If any of the offices I’ve worked at suggested a “camping trip” or “book club” I’d roll my eyes. I’m sure none of the studios I’ve worked with would disagree with most of these ideas, but I’m hopeful for the day when maybe I can “hate working” a bit less.
Didier Lucceus is a designer, maker, and researcher in Brooklyn, New York. Currently, Didier is learning about ceramics as a cleaner alternative to woodworking in an apartment.