Name: Design Is Human
Start: 2024-10-09T13:00:00-0500
End: 2024-10-09T14:30:00-0500

Wednesday October 9, 2024 1:00pm - 2:30pm CDT

Caitlin Metz and Hannah Milks: Design Is Human

A burnt out architectural MFA graduate and wayward design instructor walk into a bar, here’s what they discovered: Bodies aren’t annoying bits of flesh holding back their creative genius, but rather the filter through which all ideas and inspiration spring forth. And they’re on a mission to share the good news of trauma-informed nervous system regulation with the art and design community, where burnout and disembodiment are not unfamiliar states of being.

Come for the hot takes on well-being within the industry, stay for a peek at the duo’s ongoing project Polyvagal Pepperoni. Expect plenty swearing and a somatic primer while Hannah and Caitlin share their stories and experiences. Hannah will dish on what design school taught her about trauma, and what trauma healing taught her about design. Caitlin has the tea on what teaching design taught them about disembodiment, and how their body is leading the way towards a new pedagogy.

In this workshop you will:
- Differentiate your practice from your process
- Understand what activation and deactivation feel like in your body
- Identify what orients you towards a flow state
- Create a personalized guide for what to do next (we won’t send you away empty handed!)

Caitlin Metz (they/them) is an illustrator and freelance designer who has taught at Maryville University for the past eight years. They’ve published two books with Penguin Random House, My Body My Home: a Radical Guide to Resilience and Belonging in 2020, and Feel Something Make Something: a Guide to Collaborating with Your Emotions in 2023. Their self-led study of the mind-body connection is inspired by their personal experience of neuo-divergence and C-PTSD. They believe design can and will shape positive change in the world, and in the inexplicable power of creative expression to regulate, soothe, and heal. They are co-launching a podcast in the fall of 2024 with Rebekah Taussig: Scratch That: parenting off script.
They also run a project called Saturday Morning Carton along with their partner Andrew Gillilan; a weekly delivery of small batch muffins and a hand drawn newspaper filled with poems, musings, and illustrations. But mostly they are known as someone who screams about the sky, makes a lot of zines, and holds strangers' tears with reverence and care.

www.cailtinmetz.com
IG @caitlinhasfeels

Hannah Milks (she/her) is a queer somatic practitioner, trauma informed designer, and entrepreneur. She received her MIAPD in Interior Architecture and Product Design from Kansas State University in 2020. Her interest in social justice and the role of design in social change led her to the Somatic Experiencing® training where she spent three years studying nervous system regulation and trauma healing alongside therapists and mental health professionals. Her unique background allowed her to see the overlap between design and trauma healing and she has since been researching and developing methods to support designer’s nervous systems as they move through the creative process.

She is the owner of Clever Babes Co, and uses her training and personal experiences with mental health to create products that help people be more comfortable in their bodies while starting conversations about mental health and de-stigmatizing emotions.

IG @cleverbabesco

Wednesday October 9, 2024 1:00pm - 2:30pm CDT
Adrienne Outlaw Studio (AOS) 3115 Locust St, St. Louis, MO 63103

CREATIVE PRACTICE

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STL Design Week

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STL Design Week

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