Dejha Ti and Ania Catherine

What is an Alternative Thinker for you?

Someone who isn’t afraid to think or create in the absence of reference.

What are you bringing forward in your work?

We would like what we do to lead to a rebirth of questioning, to enable people to feel supported in imagining a future different from what is prescribed to them, and to have a sense of agency. It also is important for our work to make room for conversations that may be difficult to manage without a specifically carved out space or accessible entry point. From data, to sexuality, to our relationship to technology, our subjects vary but our approach has a thread of continuity.

Why did you highlight this/these specific project(s) below?

In waiting advocates for doing nothing, yet staying home doesn’t necessarily imply slowing down; these conditions may even deepen the problematic relationship to devices and incessant virtual interaction. It is yet to be known what this forced isolation will have on our collective psyche. In the new world which is being crafted and shaped by our actions today, we are hopeful that design will foster a shift in our relationship to technology, and carve out more empty time as a matter of mental health and wellbeing. We believe In waiting can be part of that restructuring.

What would you like to see change in the current economy?

The world still seems geared towards a future defined by more and bigger. A look at the current state of our planet is just one example of how this mentality has served us thus far (not well). We feel that what we actually need is less and better; a shift from greed to equality, from entertainment to thoughtfulness, from spectacle to feeling, from shock to nuance. We’re trying to be part of crafting a future that represents those value shifts.

Tell us what your vision of the new world – post COVID-19 – is like?

Hopefully, different. This woke many of us up to the existing unsustainable and unfair realities of our economies that were present even before COVID-19 which may be a good thing. For example, there will definitely be a new tone to discussions in the U.S. about a living wage, universal healthcare, exploitation of artists and other freelancers whose income is so precarious and living expenses so high that surviving even one month without work is impossible. Also, we hope to see different kinds of people present at decision-making tables. Instead of a group of people with the same political science degree working on policy solutions for our most pressing issues (not anything against people with a political science degree, Ania has a masters in public policy!), why not a group composed of architects, artists, scientists, teachers, lawyers, domestic workers sitting at the table? How would that meeting of minds and perspectives not better tackle the challenge?