We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Randr research institute. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Randr research institute below.
Randr research institute, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
As co-founders of randr research institute, Rahma and Rio spent a lot of time on international events that affect their regions culturally, economically, and politically. Their practice lay on the ground of the reflection on current or historic socio-political trajectories. With the online residency program, they set up platforms for international artists and designers to contribute their voices and exchange creative ideas. It is the interaction with the residents that inspired their creativity.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
randr research institute was founded in 2021 by Rahma Shahid and Rio Chen. The aim is to promote the use of political language in design for educational use. A space for designers and creators to come together and collaborate on work that addresses their local concerns and to understand how surveillance, protest, peace, and support work when design is involved.
randr research is launching the new 2023 edition of the online showcase from Satellite Residency Program titled ‘Protesting for Environment’ Featuring the Satellite 2023 residents Johnny Chen, Twee Whistler, and Kio Zhu, with their work focusing on the different ways that people around the world have been resisting the destruction to the environment or their sustainable small scale settlements. The online showcase is curated by Rahma Shahid.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Throughout the years of design practice, it became increasingly clear that we shared a goal to create a platform for young creatives to continue their interest in socio-political-focused content (which is often difficult to sustain from lack of funding). We believe that attaining these three qualities would lead your creative vision to the next level: Clear Goals, Research for the Unseen, and Communication. Clear Goals can be broken down into multiple levels of small tasks and targets, which guide you to clarify the necessary and not-so-important ones. Research for the Unseen helps you to understand the influences and consequences of doing so. Exploring the possibilities to go with alternative options to care for the environment or the audiences that are outside of your imagination. Communication is the most important one because, without it, your creation would go nowhere. Designers and Artists often withhold more understandings of the object they created compared to the audience. It is crucial to share insight and let the public understand what they are interacting with.
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
We are extremely happy to be able to work with Cynthia E. Smith from Cooper Hewitt (Smithsonian Design Museum) for the curator-led tour in June 2023. We got in touch with her months prior to the tour during our first visit to the exhibition ‘Designing Peace’ at the museum. It is a rare opportunity that we get to present the tour as our annual Public Program for randr research institute.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://randrresearch.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/randrresearchinstitute/
Image Credits
Image credits: Rio with Cynthia at Cooper Hewitt by Guanhao Zhu; Satellite 2023 Visual by Rahma Shahid; Satellite Residents’ works by Johnny Chen, Twee Whistler, Kio Zhu
