Week 8 – Part Three: Originating/Positioning

After completing our interventions as part two we moved onto part three. Creating a manifesto that stakes our ground in relation to ‘The Commons’. This manifesto is to reflect upon what we have learned from part one, documenting a social space and part two, creating an action of intervention into a social space and to reflect on our role as spatial designers within ‘The Commons’. The purpose behind this was to think about how these ideas could be used to reprogram other social spaces and for us to better understand social spaces and how they can be changed through interventions.

Although I had a vague idea of what a manifesto is, I wasn’t too clear on how to relate one to my own practice. I began to look into manifestos online to gain a better understanding and try to make a connection that I could work from for my own. As well as looking online I also read many in class and was able to identify what style of writing, tone and layouts appealed to me.

I found the humorous or sarcastic manifestos appealed more as they really made me want to keep reading. Several listing manifestos also stood out as they felt uncluttered and the message was conveyed easily. Alongside this though I also really like they layouts that were a bit all over the place, off centred, layered and had unique fonts.

Some of the manifestos that I found really appealed to me were: Lettuce Manifesto (Al Hansen), Dear Humans, Riot Grrrl Manifesto and The Passive Aggressive Manifesto.

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