Student portrait Bamna Dadashzadeh Ghasabeh
Interaction design student Bamna Dadashzadeh Ghasabeh uses design as a basis for initiating new discourses and embraces the inclusion of different perspectives — which she considers an important part of her studies.
FREDERIC POPPENHÄGER
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Frederic Poppenhäger: What made you study interaction design?
Bamna Dadashzadeh Ghasabeh: interaction, although a fundamental need, is understood and practised differently. This opens up a vast creative field. I am particularly fascinated by the social and psychological factors that enter into interaction design.
What are you working on?
As part of my master’s thesis, I am researching communication, solidarity and collaboration. I am investigating how cultural factors — for example, the trend towards “individualism” — influence these areas. Much research has already been done on this, but the findings are scattered, complex and not always easily accessible. However, they shape today’s challenges and designing the future together.
Tell us about your “poetry performances”
The poetry performances serve to put intangible phenomena and complex emotions into a spatial and multi-sensory context. The performances are an invitation to a garden of vulnerability, to the world of captured stories and, above all, to one’s own emotional world.
How do you define design?
I see design as a language that makes complex topics accessible to a broad audience. Design enables me to be a host and translator: I invite people into new worlds of experience where they can engage with a topic themselves. Design lays the foundation for new discourses and negotiations.
How do you see ZHdK?
After some time in professional life, I returned to ZHdK to do a master’s and noticed that things had changed — also among students. We are now addressing social issues that were not considered a few years ago. This establishes an initial basis for developing further together — but it is a long process. It is important that the needs of different stakeholders are heard and satisfied.
How would you describe your vision?
I consider a society that tolerates ambiguity to be desirable: a society that encourages us to learn from others and allows us to change our views. Thinking critically also means being critical of one’s own ideas. But this requires a social and institutional culture that encourages this. Ultimately, we face collective challenges that we cannot address with an individualistic attitude. I would like us to be curious about what we don’t know and pragmatic enough to navigate uncertainty. In doing so, we must also be courageous enough to set ourselves goals that are unimaginable today.