CANDU is a cancer lived experience charity founded in 2018 in Dundee. Members have all been affected by cancer and are committed to supporting others both practically and emotionally as well as sharing their lived experience to influence and promote change and improvement within support services.
In 2023 the V&A Dundee Design museum hosted the CANDU Cancer Lived Experience Conference, Defining Lived Expertise by Design.
This collaborative event was almost a full year in development, with around 80 people from all walks of life attending in various capacities over the day. The complex event involved multiple speakers, an in-conversation event, design workshops, a marketplace and networking.
The day culminated in the designing of a cancer lived experience tartan, inspired loosely by themes explored in the museum’s exhibition, Tartan.
Many objects in this exhibition delve into how designers have used tartan’s grid as a way to code information or tell stories. Far from being a purely aesthetic textile, colours, patterns, set widths and thread counts can all hold meaning.
Tartan has been used to communicate both personal stories and visualise complex data. This was one of the starting points for the team of designers – Gary Kennedy from architectural design studio kennedytwaddle designer and co-design specialist Linsey McIntosh, and Kim Anderson and Robbie Beautyman from the Service Design Academy, based at Dundee & Angus College – who led the workshops.
Working on a scaled-up grid of tartan, the concept was to co-design a tartan, that would visually represent people’s differing lived expertise. The workshop drew on tartan’s grid, using the vertical warp and horizontal weft to represent the themes of why we share our lived experience, and what a lived expert can bring. The threads (coloured ribbons, in this case, as the grid itself was nearly two metres square) then represented practical or emotional needs.
Just like the rules of tartan’s grid, participants were encouraged to consider the elements of pattern and symmetry when placing their ribbons on the evolving frame, not only for aesthetic purposes, but to see their experience and contributions mirrored by someone else, further promoting dialogue and empathy. As more ribbons were added, the two sperate warp and weft frames gradually filled with vibrant lines of colour, each with a personal story or experience behind it. The activity acted as a way to openly talk about experiences of cancer while engaged in the act of making – a therapeutic process that is often more effective than a clinical conversation.
At the end of the day, the two frames were brought together for the first time, the two sets of vibrant semi-translucent ribbons allowing new colours to form at the perpendicular intersections – in an instant, the individual ribbons changed into what was instantly recognisable as a piece of tartan, yet one inlaid with emotion and meaning. It was a new tartan that hadn’t existed a few hours previously, formed by a human-centred design activity to embody the themes of the conference.
The conference has helped us understand why people choose to share their lived experience and what value this can add. At this year’s conference, to be held at the V&A Dundee on 4th November, 2024, we will explore how lived experience involvement can be prioritised, valued and made truly influential.
We hope that this newly registered tartan will act as a legacy of the conference, and act as a talking point to discuss people’s lived experience with cancer as well as being a designed object in itself with a unique story behind it.
Events like the CANDU conference and the involvement of designers are incredibly important to foster collaboration, empathy and utilise creative methods of expression to ensure all voices are heard and valued. Such is the power of design.
Blog by Peter Nurick (V&A Dundee) & Dr Julie Wardrop (CANDU)
