ABSTRACT
Chapter 4: Dialoguing While Wandering: Co-Creating Inclusion Through Short Films highlights that, within the field of inclusive design, policy development is often viewed as the optimum medium by which to enact change and to create inclusion. Reframing inclusive design introduces innovative ways to communicate inclusion everywhere and every way, beyond policies, codes and papers which are not accessible to all stakeholders. And communicating through an alternate medium like film offers new ways to understand inclusion. Films co-created for inclusion encourage detailed and rich embodied knowledge and experiences because the information is prompted by association with one’s surroundings. Significantly, films have the capacity to excavate personalised knowledge of/from those with different abilities and uncover systems of exclusion, often hidden or naturalised and shamedly rendered invisible through policies, codes and papers. As an accessible medium, short films can break down attitudinal barriers from unconscious bias, stigma and stereotypes. This chapter provides insights into how films travel, often to unexpected places – reaching differing audiences and resulting in significant impact. Two projects exemplify how film can begin to shift our process and practice of inclusive design. First, the short film Wandering on the Braille Trail (2018) is presented which is a dialogue while wandering the Braille Trail in Brisbane, Australia. Dialoguing here refers to walking while talking, pointing, gesturing and the other shared experiences that happen while co-inhabiting the built environment. The second discussion is how short films can be used as an educational tool and highlights the 100 Canadian interior design student videos, called a day in the life of . . . created over a ten-year period (2006–2015) as a part of their Universal Design course. These powerful examples demonstrate how short films can be used across all sectors to inform best practice in inclusive design and inclusive design education.
