Academic Project
Individual Project
2024 Fall
I was inspired by a printmaking piece I encountered at an art book fair. It read, “Radical softness: a boundless form of resistance.” This quote made me realize the power of softness. As a feminist, a more-than-human designer, and a researcher, my work is critical, but I’ve come to understand that it is not sharp. Perhaps softness is a better way to describe it. Softness can become a power of resistance, revolt, and recovery.
We are all soft
Accepting our own softness does not mean becoming weak. Softness is a perspective, a way of confronting contradictions and conflicts—a form of resistance.
Softness allows us to flow freely, to move through narrow spaces, to traverse edges, gaps, and corners. Softness throws us “from normative ground.” It offers us experiences distinct from the rigid, normative, disciplined bodies.These unique experiences attune us to subtle, unconventional phenomena, giving rise to critical perspectives.
Softness enables us to embrace our imperfections and vulnerabilities. We are born soft. We don’t have to (always) be hard; we don’t have to conform to expectations of being independent and strong.
Softness can become power itself.
Our experiences of vulnerability reflect the oppression and inequality embedded in social systems. Softness provides a lens through which, by recognizing our own fragility, we can also see the fragility of others. Sharing such vulnerable experiences fosters connection, strengthens interdependence, and builds collective power for radical change.
The fluidity brought by softness allows us to embrace around one another tightly. It creates intimate spaces where we realize we are not isolated individuals but interdependent beings. This fluidity blurs the boundaries between self and other, human and non-human. We are all enveloped by each other’s softness, holding one another tightly in a time of uncertainty and crisis, collaborating to survive.
Softness is powerful. It can cushion sharp impacts, envelop pointed objects, and protect us from harm. Hardness is not the only tool for resistance or self-protection. Softness is a kind of resistance.
Just as softness shapes how we understand and move through life, it can also reshape how we could design for the world.
In life, in design, we should also embrace the power of softness. A soft perspective is one that prioritizes empathy, flexibility, and relationality over rigid structures—it seeks to understand the world not through domination or control, but through attentiveness to subtle connections, allowing space for complexity, ambiguity, and mutual care to emerge.
Soft perspective could reveal the limitations of design in solving problems—it shows us what design cannot solve. It also reveals the vulnerabilities of technology. Technology is inherently soft—it is not the answer to every question, nor is it almighty. Instead, technology could crush, break down and collapse. It is the soft perspective that allows us to recognize the fragility of technology.
Softness allows us to move freely through spaces, directing our attention to those excluded by design—those often pushed to the margins of spaces.
Softness helps us see our own vulnerabilities and the limits of our perspectives. But it does not make us fragile; on the contrary, the posture of softness allows us to listen and understand others in a more attentive and humble way. This act of listening strengthens us, enabling us to better advocate for those who might not have a voice.
Through design, we can make ourselves soft. This softness is an acceptance of our vulnerabilities and an open perspective.
Through design, we can soften old, rigid ideas, allowing new concepts and possibilities to emerge.
Through design, we can let softness embrace us and allow vulnerability to empower us.
Softness is a form of power. Embrace it, design with it, and let it guide how we navigate a world in flux.
We are all soft.