Social Interventions: An Approach to Creating Social Change

Social interventions are creative and often public ways to create social change. They are actions taken to reconfigure social habits, unspoken agreements or arrangements that, prior to the intervention, add to the durability and normalcy of a social problem. They frequently use spectacle, public space and the unexpected to point out underlying dynamics and assumptions in complex social issues.

In this interactive workshop we will engage participants in designing powerful, fun and creative social interventions through: reviewing five diverse social interventions, looking for themes, addressing the “5 S’s of intervention design” (scale, structure, systems, symbols, and sensation), discussing the importance of increasing interventionist approaches to change, and inviting participants to be a part of a larger conversation and practice of designing social interventions.