Designing with Other Ways of Knowing with Desirée Theriault

Listen to the full episode on Spotify

Desirée Theriault is a Partner and Senior Landscape Designer with Narratives Inc. In this episode, Elspeth talks to Desirée about her journey into landscape design, as well as her views on design as a tool to bring dignity and voice to both land and people.

Show Links:

• Narratives Inc. https://narrativesinc.com/

  Desiree's thesis work: Red river women: A memorial for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG2S) alongside Winnipeg's Red River

  https://mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/items/22798c24-f435-4d17-a560-d43b8f7aaa53

  CBC feature on Desiree's work, "Winnipeg's Alexander Docks reimagined as living MMIWG2S memorial by Métis landscape designer" by Ozten Shebahkeget

  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/narrativesinc/

So I Decided can be found at www.soidecidedpodcast.com and on Instagram @soidecidedpodcast

So I Decided is recorded on Lenapehoking, the traditional homeland of the Lenape people.So I Decided can be found at www.soidecidedpodcast.com and on Instagram @soidecidedpodcast

So I Decided is recorded on Lenapehoking, the traditional homeland of the Lenape people.

TRANSCRIPTION

EH: Good morning, Desiree. Thank you so much for joining me. It's really wonderful to see you! How are you doing this morning?

DT: Yeah, good morning. I am so excited to be here and really looking forward to just having this little Sunday coffee chat with you and talk a little bit about design and social change and getting into change-making talks.

EH: I really appreciate you taking some Sunday morning time. You and I spoke a few months ago. I had reached out to you because I found your work through the University of Manitoba website, thesis project that had been released on the website. I just thought it was so beautiful. And I had noticed too that the work, it seemed like, had garnered some attention. There's a CBC article documenting your work. How about we start with just a little bit about yourself and who you are?

DT: Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me, Elspeth. I am really excited, like I said, and really looking forward to your conversation today.

So my name is Desiree Theriault. I am a Red River Métis woman from Treaty 1 Territory located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. My ancestors came all the way across the Great Lakes and settled in Saint-Laurent, Manitoba, which is like a very small, small little town there.

And throughout my childhood, I would spend weeks in the summer out in the bush with my family. We'd go camping and that really grew my interest in the relationship between land and people, but I didn't know it at the time. When I was around 10 years old, 12 years old, early teens is when I began my journey in design. And I loved to draw and I would draw the buildings around me, the landscapes around me, and little did I know something like landscape architecture and architecture existed.

And funnily enough, I was also fascinated by technology. And that kind of led me into this weird space where I was looking at computer science as a way to embark on a journey of creativity and also innovation and found out I hated it. But within that, within that, yeah, computer science, people leave it. So went into computer science with the assumption that I would be doing some game design, like looking at creating environments in the games. And we had an assignment where we were doing like cityscapes, planning cities. And I was like, what the heck? I need to do this like in real life. Like I could do this in the public spaces that I'm inhabiting every day.

EH: So interesting.

DT: I know!

EH: That was your way in. You're like, I don't need to do this in the computer.

DT: Yeah!

EH: What if I could really make this happen around me and for people around me?

DT: Absolutely. And part of that was also because I was really not the best at computer science. I have a lot of respect for people who can go about and create CGI environments. I think it's fascinating and really, really an interesting way to look at design. But all that to say that it led me on this journey of, oh, man, what can I do with the spaces that I'm in and celebrate the spaces that I'm in and also honor those spaces that I'm in? And that's when I started my journey in architecture and specifically landscape architecture.

And so my work became deeply rooted in reconciling the connection between land and people. And I remember I knew I was in the right place when my one of my landscape architecture professors was like, you know, you're going to be the next round of designers that are going to be coming into this world and designing the places that people will have their first kiss, that people will have their first beer, that people will have their first picnic as a family. You're creating spaces that are meaningful, that means something to community.

And I was like, whoa, yeah, this is exactly where I want to be. I became really passionate about how design can create inclusive, restorative and regenerative spaces.

EH: And do you think that interest and those values came from how you were raised and the people around you or what you were seeing in the world?

DT: Absolutely. Yeah. Something that I didn't even realize would influence me was just how I grew up as a child out in nature all the time. Like my entire summers were spent in campgrounds in the bush. Sometimes my grandparents couldn't afford to go into the campground. So they'd do some gorilla camping and we'd go and see them and stay with them for a little bit, do some berry picking and a lot of storytelling. That really empowered me to look at the spaces around me and how they hold memories for us.

And that really led me to my thesis work that you spoke about earlier about how land holds memory. And it's really important to bring dignity to that land and also acknowledge its importance to community. So, yeah, I would say there was many influences, but certainly when I was growing up, it was really prevalent and I didn't even know it. And here I am now trying to uncover what that means for me and what it means to hold space for land, but also hold space for the memories that are held in the land.

EH: Do you feel like that thesis project was a project where you felt a lot of these interests and your experience and what you had been learning in school was a moment for you to say, yes, this is me. This is something that feels like all of these things finally coming together, because it's not, I think, for a lot of people, right, it's not always the first thing you do. The first set of projects, right?

It takes time and it takes learning about ourselves and our craft and to get to that point of really feeling like aligned with what you're doing.

And I mean, I'm still figuring that out. I think a lot of people are still figuring that out. What do I like to do? What am I good at? And where do I really want to invest myself and my time? So, yeah, it was, I guess, the success that you received from that project and people recognizing it and seeing like the ideas and going, wow, this is really beautiful and also functional and keeping people safe.

And the message behind all of this, like really resonating, I'm sure, also with people coming to terms with Canada's history. What did that mean to you that people were recognizing this work and that you had made these ideas and that people wanted to really hear from you about them?

DT: It was a really humbling experience. When I began my journey in design and really trying to see the spaces around me and how they reflect me as an Indigenous woman, I found that I was always surrounded by spaces that weren't really reflecting who I was as a person.

And I think a lot of people go into their design journeys to also find purpose in the work that they do. I would always bring myself back to those moments in my childhood where it was these spaces that I had created with my family out in the bush and that those became spaces that honored me.

And finding myself in a big city like Winnipeg where there wasn't many spaces that reflected my indigeneity and where I came from, that became something really important to me. And that trying to understand, you know, who do I want to do this for?

And at the time when I was looking at my thesis and trying to figure out my topic, I was interested in finding something that would not only acknowledge that design can function from different ways of knowing, it can also amplify voices that go unheard, and it can also honor spaces on the land that haven't been brought dignity.

I started my thesis work back in 2019 and it was an important year for me because I was really involved in the movement for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. And looking at ways to amplify that messaging, I would go out to marches and rallies and speak to a lot of family members.

And it was like it hit me in the face that landscape architecture can be a vehicle to actually bring dignity and bring voice to missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and their families. So I centered my work on spatial memorialization and at the time in 2019, there was some calls to justice or calls for justice that came out for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the national inquiry had fully gone through.

And as I was reading through the calls for justice, I realized that spatial justice, specifically around architecture and landscape architecture, wasn't fully embedded in the calls. I felt like that was an opportunity for me to look at that critically and showcase that design can be a very important tool to bring justice and dignity and honor, and also to amplify stories that go unheard or unaddressed. And that really became my passion throughout my thesis work.

And I then went on to do my thesis work called Red River Women, a memorial for the Alexander Docs dedicated to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. And through that journey, I had the chance to talk to some families. I had the chance to talk to Bernadette Smith, who is one of the ones who started the Coalition of Families for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Winpig.

And to begin this dialogue around memorialization as a vehicle for decolonizing the land and also reconciling the stories of the land. And it was a really hard and challenging thesis, but it was so humbling as an experience. And I think that was something that I wanted to do as a designer is to bring in that humility aspect.

And that's something that I carry with me to this day now. I think a couple of things that were a bit different for me when I was doing this work is because I was approaching it from a humility lens, a lot of it allowed me to really rethink a lot of my education, which sounds crazy.

But as an Indigenous woman, the frameworks that were put in are frameworks that we haven't grown up in. You're constantly put into colonial ways of knowing, and that's the only way of knowing. When in reality, there are so many diverse voices and perspectives that should be accounted for. And that was something really important to me through my journey of my thesis work.

I really wanted to focus in on humility as a cornerstone to my approach. So really just humbling myself and decolonizing my thought process throughout this.

And part of that is about looking at the land and its relationship to people. My thesis work actually looked at interviewing families and then mapping out the locations of those who went missing and those who were murdered.

And actually putting those in a visual way. And I was really blown away by that exercise because it's something that had never been really shown before.

And you go to Crime Stoppers or CBC and they have these really great visualizations, but seeing them on a map, it really triggers something in you like, wow, this is actually a spatial issue as well.

It's something that is happening in specific areas. And how do you make those areas more safe? And how do you also make those areas highlight the stories of those who went missing or who were murdered there?

Which I will say, this is a really heavy topic for Sunday morning, but it's an incredibly humbling approach to look at the land and those stories that are on there and then to see that, oh wow, this is actually something that is spatial and we can do something about it.

EH: Yes. And using your skills to highlight a very important issue for all of us and to point out these spaces and say, you know, we need to be doing more and saying more and remembering what's happened here.

DT: Absolutely. Yeah, it was something that I really felt was crucial that, you know, this thesis work was an exploration of reflecting that design and public space belongs to many communities and voices and to reflect those spaces for those communities as well.

And to honor those spaces for those communities, but also as a way to reconcile the land. And so it was something that I really had a hard time identifying exactly how to make this what it was.

And then when it all kind of came into place, it was really powerful because I had these families who were telling me like, thank you, like, we don't have a space to gather by the water, and we don't have somewhere where we can have almost like national memorial dedicated to missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and a place that people can truly understand what happened.

EH: I don't know if this is part of any of the conversation you've had, but has there been any interest in the project, or some version of it.

DT: Yeah, so I've had a chance to speak to some of the developers and with the exchange district biz. And right now the conversation is very much on something's got to change in that area and it does have to honor the many layers and stories that are part of the Alexander docks and anybody who lives in Winnipeg knows that the Alexander docks holds a lot of history, it was one of the locations for the 1919 strike, it was the location of goods and transportation for for a very long time in Winnipeg and part of its economic growth.

And of course, it was one of the areas where the national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls got kick started, where they found Tina Fontaine body. So it's, it's a space that holds all of these incredibly important moments in histories.

And so there is definitely recognition that something has to happen there and right now, there's a process to look at ways we can understand that space and also to make sure that it honors all sides of the story so I'm working alongside those developers with the exchange district is to see what can come through from that. And it's something that's really exciting.

And I'm really grateful to be part of that conversation as well.

EH: I hope that they do something right. I'm sure that with people like you on the team, that it will actually thoughtfully be integrated.

I want to go back to what you were saying about kind of like unlearning what you had learned. And also thank you for your just honesty and offering that because I think it's really important and something that you know most people don't consider or think about as they are learning about the way the world works, and what is important to consider conducting yourself, I guess in this case as a designer, and how we design and whose voices are heard and what is the process of designing and who are our, you know, mentors and we look to these great men who are these designers. And I think in parallel with what you've told me about what you do now at Narratives is like hearing from people and the families who have a different way of seeing the world and like, truly listening to them.

Yeah, can you say more about that?

DT: Yeah, throughout my academic career, a lot of my work has been centered on decolonization and decolonization of my own perspective and lens and also through my design work, and it's one of the cornerstones to my approaches in design, it's essential for quality of the work, for how we move forward with our futures.

When I think about design, and particularly in landscape architecture, it isn't just about aesthetics or functionality. It's about creating spaces that have a meaningful impact on people's lives. And when we look at that and we think about that deeply, designers need to approach their work with, with deep respect for communities they serve and the environments they interact with.

When you think about decolonization, it's a very hard thing to grasp. In fact, I still feel like it's something that's evolving for me constantly, but I think it means to me personally, taking a step back and thinking about, you know, is this the only way to think about this?

And how can we think about this differently? And to me, this is something that was really important when I was in school, because there's a certain kind of ego that comes with design, that design should only be done in certain ways, or it's always been done this way, it can't be changed.

But I think when you look at decolonization, it's about looking at design and breaking some of those frameworks that have been built up to acknowledge other ways of knowing and to acknowledge that there's a diverse amount of people that you might be designing for. There needs to be humility in that, and it allows us to recognize that we're not the sole experts in what we're doing. Every project has stakeholders with valuable insights, experiences that can enrich the design process, and actively listening and collaborating, we're able to uncover perspectives that might not have been apparent at first glance.

And it leads us to more inclusive and contextually relevant design solutions. So really integral and important. And part of my journey at narratives was really looking at decolonizing that realm of engagement and looking at ways to embed trauma-informed principles. Trauma-informed is a term that we typically use in healthcare, where you're acting in a trauma-informed way for your patients so you don't trigger them while you're taking care of them.

Well, the same thing can be said for design. You're working with people's livelihoods, and the way you might be planning a project could actually destroy the livelihood of another stakeholder that might be at hand. So there needs to be a lot of thoughtfulness when you're approaching it, approaching different communities and different ways of knowing, and being centered on on humanity enables us to acknowledge that the land itself has wisdom to share and that other communities have wisdom to share that should be integrated into the design process.

EH: Wow.

DT: I think it's really challenging. Like, it's definitely not something that you can do right away. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of … it's like learning to ride a bike. It takes a lot of practice and to recognize those areas that, hmm, we've always done this this way, but can we actually do it a different way? And extending our knowledge in ways that honor different ways of knowing and that design is a dynamic field and doesn't need to be rigid.

And in fact, I think that's the beautiful thing about design is that it isn't rigid. It can evolve, it can transform with the spaces that we're in, and that makes it something really powerful and evocative and really part of how we can bring on change in our spaces.

EH: Yeah. And how can we as designers use that privilege and space to recreate spaces but also approaches the way people engage and learn about these processes and so I'd love to talk to you a little bit about narratives and the place that demonstrates this work. Yeah, what was your journey to narratives? And can you tell us a little bit about the work and the company?

DT: Yeah, absolutely. So, working with narratives has been transformative for me it's been something really special and something that I didn't think could come through in my journey, especially something so soon after thesis work, but when I was completing my thesis, I had reached out to narratives because I was really intrigued by how they approached planning and consultation.

And I had talked about landscape architecture and how that might be an area that could also be included in the way that they're approaching different ways and pathways in the planning and consultation world. And at the time, Somiya and Connor were like, yeah, we need to do this, let's do this.

So, along the way I've learned how to leverage design and landscape architecture to connect those diverse ways of knowing, while also recognizing the colonial roots that have shaped our field. And it's been really powerful for me.

At narratives, we have a really hard time nailing down our elevator pitch, if you will, but we're an environmental planning consultation firm, we directly engage and work with communities, specifically First Nation communities, to advance holistic understanding of how projects impact the world on social, cultural, environmental and spiritual levels.

So, really active in the realm of impact assessments, in the realm of community planning and of design. A lot of the ways that we work is through a trauma-informed lens. So, we look at things through inclusive methods and prioritizing respectful dialogue and engagement and fostering informed decision making that aligns with those different ways of knowing and really to amplify voices that have been unheard or unaddressed for a very long time and contributing to the path of reconciliation and cooperation with Indigenous nations.

And that last piece was something that really resonated with me because it was something that I was working towards in my thesis work and it felt like a harmony when I met with Somya, who's the founder of Narratives, Inc.

And so, throughout my journey at Narratives, we've been looking at breaking down barriers that impede meaningful collaboration and really starting this conversation about trauma-informed design and planning and how that can be embedded in our workplaces across the world.

For example, we're working with a lot of survivors of residential schools right now and anybody who works with First Nations knows that there's multiple layers of generational trauma that impact the way that you build strong relationships of truth and respect.

And there are some processes in design and planning that are really rigid and disallow for strong connections and relationships to be built.

For example, we have codes of ethics. There's something that you have to do in university as well with your thesis work. You have to go and get ethics forms signed by all those that you're going to be engaging with.

Folks in the work realm and firms also have to do that with their stakeholders when they're engaging with stakeholders. And having language like anonymizing or disrupting the work after a certain period of time or anonymizing somebody in a report can be actually quite triggering to somebody who grew up as a survivor and went through residential school, who they were stripped away from their name, anonymized.

Those things are incredibly important to think about and be thoughtful about when we're approaching design and planning and to understand that people have been stripped from their voices for a very long time, have been stripped from their names for a very long time, and we can actually, we're all human at the end of the day and we can recognize that and we can actually find better ways of using language and using design and using planning to create more meaningful dialogues and to create more meaningful work.

EH: Right. I mean we're talking about even just signing the paper to get started.

That relationship is going to also take time and living in a world where everything wants to happen really fast. It's profit driven. I assume you have to work patiently and a completely different lens.

Does that conversation go well with people you're collaborating with? Do your clients recognize and value that approach and that's why they come to you? Or is it even still like a little bit of a negotiation on some of those fronts?

DT: No, totally. Well, we have really great working relationships with a lot of our clients. A lot of our clients are actually folks that we've built relationships with for a very long time, like Somiya when she first started Narratives. These are folks that she's built relationships with and have continued to maintain those relationships with.

So funnily enough, a lot of our clients are from word of mouth, which is not typically how firms operate. And I think that's a testament to taking the time to build meaningful relationships and allowing ourselves to also be vulnerable in the process.

I know it's very challenging sometimes being designers and you don't want to be vulnerable. You don't want to share about yourself and your personal story. But I think in order to get into meaningful design, you do have to get vulnerable and you do have to be a bit uncomfortable to get to some place where you can build meaningful trust and respect and find ways to build something really powerful and meaningful and contextual to space.

So with that said, the way we actually work is with a council of advisors and we lean on them heavily and we have an elder there who always reminds us to take our time. And we embody that in a lot of the work that we do.

And it's something that's also really important to a lot of our clients. A lot of our clients also work in that way. So it's functioned for us. That said, there's still of course colonial frameworks that are embedded into the process. There's always a budget. There's always some kind of timeline that we have to hold true to.

But we work in a way that is adaptable and flexible so that we're able to cater to the needs of the client in a way that you would a friend. And taking an approach that's much more human centered rather than capitalistically framed, if you will. So yeah, it's been a really interesting and I think exciting way to learn how to do this work.

And I know that there's a lot of other firms that are starting to work in different ways and acknowledge that these frameworks that we're working in don't have to be the only way.

And I think the pandemic has really shown us that there are different ways of doing work, of doing design, and doing it meaningfully, but also sustainably.

EH: Do you find that your team is building those bridges between different groups? Or is it a bit of that and consulting with like-minded peoples? What do the projects tend to look like?

DT: It's really interesting. We typically, well to answer your first question, I think definitely the bridges that are being built through our relationships help us hone in on our ways of working and understanding how to be flexible and adaptable.

And that has really helped us with our approaches. And in fact, we always say, we walk with you. Like that's really how we approach our work. We walk with you.

Because we really want this to be like a walk in a park or a walk in the forest on a trail. And if they stop, we stop. If they move ahead, we catch up to them. If we move ahead, we wait for them to catch up to us.

So it's very much about a journey of finding ways to lean on each other and respect each other through that process, while acknowledging that we're expert in certain areas and they'll be expert in certain areas.

And finding mutual ways of working through that. When I think about some of the projects that we're working on, a lot of the work is very diverse because we take a bit of a more adaptable approach.

And often what we find is we'll be working with a community and it'll be like, hmm, I think we should actually not do this report as a written report, but as a video series.

And then it's like, okay, yeah, let's do this. So we're doing video work. We're doing design work where we're looking at memorialization.

So landscape design is being plugged in. We're looking at impact assessment, but looking at impact assessment, not from just the regulatory framework that the federal government puts on impact assessment, but also acknowledging the ways of knowing from First Nation communities.

So we worked with an Anishinaabe community and they have a specific law, an Anishinaabe law, an indigenous law that they utilize to understand the world and to also respect the lands that are in their territory. And the federal government doesn't recognize that law, but we're looking at how can impact assessment include those laws that are true to their territory and their lands and should be just as prevalent and if not addressed from a federal perspective as well.

So looking at impact assessment through other lenses and I think the other big projects that we're working on are really looking at the search for unmarked graves for residential schools and working with communities who have former residential schools in their territory and working with them to support their searches. And that's been very challenging, but also very powerful and something that I'm deeply honored to be part of.

EH: Right. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, for you and your team, looking at each of these scenarios you're presented with, you know, ask for services on and really like being open to what the product can look like and what the output would look like and really asking, okay, what is going to serve what we're trying to do and collaborate on, which I think is really interesting because it's not an approach that maybe, you know, we're all designers as creative people and we're looking for a creative solution but it usually has kind of one output that you might consider for that. When your team is consulting on something, and you might identify, you know, we think that a video series for example is going to really tell the story or provide what we are looking to do, do you then outsource like certain services, bring other people into this, is that something that, you know, working with your client and maybe like, bring this forward as an idea?

DT: Yeah, so what will typically happen is like we'll work with the client and see if they have somebody in mind that they may have worked with like it's a lot about capacity building and honoring the skills of community and those in the community so finding people that may be right for the job and then if they don't have somebody in mind, that's when, okay, we'll look at our networks and see if we have somebody and at the end of the day, it kind of contributes to our growth as well as we're going through this, we're finding like, oh, actually, yeah, this could be something we could continue to offer if we had somebody in this space so we end up finding folks who are doing that kind of work and then they end up joining narratives and then it creates this very, we have a very diverse team with like an eclectic background and it makes for some really innovative ways of thinking and I'm very grateful for that because it allows me to push the boundaries of design and allows me to push the boundaries of planning and engagement and to think more critically about how we can positively contribute to the well-being of community and the environment and to do so in ways that aren't conventional and may actually honor more the client and their ways of knowing and the way they see the world so yeah, it's been a really powerful way of doing things.

EH: Right, when you were in school, you were saying you maybe hadn't seen this coming until you met the right people. I mean, that's sort of what this entire show is trying to do is what are other ways of working as a designer in this field and also speaking with people like yourself who have followed something within you, whether you knew it was there or you learned later, that felt really aligned and using your skills.

And obviously also like take inspiration from the world around you and just respond because I think in school, I don't know, I had it was a very one track mind, at least for me like okay I'm going to graduate and I'm going to design parks and okay what does that look like the like just these ideas coming kind of seemingly in one person's mind. In a vacuum and.

DT: Totally well like, yeah, when you think about it, most of our cities have been built by white men for for centuries so when you start to think about that it really puts things into perspective about how design for a very long time has been set by specific standards and perspectives that don't necessarily look at the full picture of diversity.

And it's something that's really I think challenging for for a lot of designers to uncover that and to also see like okay well what does diversity mean and design and I really encourage all designers to think critically about that and to think about how the spaces that you design reflect those around you, but also honor those around you and also taking a step back to understand like, okay, a lot of these design rules have been put together in a lot of colonial context or frameworks which aren't necessarily bad, but to also take a moment to question them and find ways to potentially see if there's another way to go about a design process or a way of knowing. And what you'll find is, you'll become a much more humble designer that allows you to be more curious about the world around you.

It allows you to respect the land, but also to respect the communities around you that you're designing for. And yeah, not necessarily to say that designers don't have respect for the land or communities around them but I think it's something that people take for granted, especially in the design world that, oh yeah, a lot of our standards and our frameworks that we're building designs around are based on my own view of the world or some other person's perception of the world and how they wrote design frameworks.

So, how can I expand that to also include other varying perspectives so that your design isn't just informed by your own heart work, but also all of those around you. And it's, it's challenging because like I mentioned there's a lot of eco and design and that's okay, but it also means that it takes a lot of time to recognize that design isn't just for you, it's for everyone around you.

EH: Right. It's so nice hearing your story and again, how humble and honest you are about being on this journey.

The pathways and, you know, for many of us who we meet the opportunities were given to learn and hearing from you about what you have learned and how you're practicing it, both personally and your in your personal design work and, and now at work and it's wonderful to hear from from you and we have been provided with certain frameworks. We all work within most of us I think anyway for companies that have a certain approach we all live in cities that are built in certain ways and the more exposure learning and listening we do.

Hopefully, in time, the better we can all get at seeing recognizing and working to expand that perspective and also really deeply understanding why it's important. I'm very grateful for you to be here and to share that about your journey and the ways that you've created. You know what I think are really tools for people to learn and also I hope that they are truly realized and recognized and.

Yeah, I mean again, I just thank you so much for being here and coming on here to speak about yourself and your experience.

DT: Thank you so much for for having me and you know I'm very excited about this podcast I think it's so, so important and something that I wish I had, especially in school because it's something that I think a lot of people, especially in the design world are trying to understand their place in the world and what it means and how you can utilize design and so many different ways and any field of design will show you that you have the ability to be transformative and to transform the spaces and the ways of knowing around you and that is a very powerful tool.

And you need to take a moment to understand what it can do for you and how it can elicit change. So, as we conclude I really want to emphasize the many opportunities we have to learn from other ways of knowing and my, my message to the next generation of designers is to recognize the immense potential of their work in transforming communities and landscapes, and I encourage them to approach their designs with humility and with respect, engage with local cultures, histories, traditions.

As designers, we hold the power to shape the future, and I hope the next generation continues to bridge the gap between different knowledge systems, finding innovative solutions that honor the past while creating a sustainable and equitable tomorrow.

And yeah, I am really excited about where this podcast will go. So thank you so much for having me.

EH: Beautiful. That was. Yeah, that was beautiful. Thank you.