: For Students, Faculty, and Staff 
The exhibition “Empathy at Scale” encourages viewers to consider the impacts of common consumer goods and how those objects — and the surrounding systems of material extraction, manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal — could be redesigned for better impacts on humans and the environment.
This exhibit features research and outcomes of the March 2023 Kusske Design Initiative (KDI) Burst workshop. The 2023 Burst workshop was co-facilitated by KDI Co-Principals Linsey Griffin, Assistant Professor of Apparel Design and Co-director of the Human Dimensioning Laboratory; and Carlye Lauff, Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director, Product Design; with Llisa Demetrios, Chief Curator of the Eames Institute and granddaughter of Charles and Ray Eames; and John Cary, BA ’99 Architecture, CEO & President of the Eames Institute. The workshop focused on the importance of empathy in design at both the human and global/environmental scale.
This exhibition was curated by Andria Codner, MS, Product Design ’23 and Kusske Research Assistant with assistance from Carlye Lauff, Linsey Griffin, Alanna Nissen, and Aubree Tillett.
About KDI
A generous commitment from Manitou Fund to the University of Minnesota’s College of Design honors the memory of distinguished alumnus Christopher Arthur Kusske, BLA ’78. The Kusske Design Initiative (KDI) honors his legacy through widely inclusive events and collaborations among a growing community of broadminded designers. Chris’s emphases on interdisciplinary dialogue, co-creativity, and celebration of the natural world inspire solutions for planetary-scale challenges. By combining values of ecological stewardship with the disciplinary spectrum that forms the college’s DNA, KDI programs and inquiries have transformative potential for the products we use and the environments we inhabit. Learn more about KDI at z.umn.edu/kdi.
Exhibit details
What: Empathy at Scale
When: Aug. 23 through Dec. 31, 2023 | Open during library hours
Where: Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library | 210 Rapson Hall
