Is the power of water a value for everyone?

Inside Out (Á Röngunni)

Poster, Installation, Participatory event

MA research project

2015

Inside Out (Á Röngunni in Icelandic) is a design research project conducted during my exchange study at Iceland Academy of the Arts. This project aims to visualise state-of-things by enlightening the limited accessibility to water for people in special needs. The purpose of the final participatory event was to get people's story involved IN, and let the hidden situation and our message OUT.

Laugardalslaug swimming pool (Source: Reykjavik Grapevine).

Swimming pool is a very important part of the Icelandic culture as a sport, a medicine, a relaxing activity, and a social hub. The weightless body enjoys the sense of water. The positive effects water has on us transcends physical and mental boundaries. Water is the defining element of Icelanders, and they take their pools seriously. In Iceland, however, only 19 of the 134 public swimming pools are accessible to disabled people.

Poster for the visual delivery of our message.

Place: The local's favourite, Vesturbæjar swimming pool. As a local hub of activity, this is where Icelandic people meet to discuss politics, culture, the weather and life in one of the pool's four hot tubs. — Place: The local's favourite, Vesturbæjar swimming pool. As a local hub of activity, this is where Icelandic people meet to discuss politics, culture, the weather and life in one of the pool's four hot tubs.

Meeting regular customers through conducting a survey

In collaboration with a fellow student, Stella Önnudóttir Sigurgeirsdóttir, we had kept in touch with one special kid’s family and listened the difficulties they faced in the Vesturbæjar swimming pool that they use on a regular basis. We aimed to deliver the message in a positive, empirical way. Then we installed a survey box, which is a miniature of the swimming pool, asking what is missing in the pool without revealing our context regarding people with special needs in order to show that people don’t notice the lack of facilities for the disabled when they take it for granted. Over a hundred of answers were collected in 10 hours for two days.

One of the main recipients: two chairmen of ÍTR (the committee of sport and leisure) and a chairman of the Vesturbæjarlaug swimming pool as real change-makers, and supervisor, Hlín Helga Guðlaugsdóttir.

Involving stakeholders in the context

The main recipients of our final presentation were three parts; regular pool guests from Vesturbæjarlaug, the parents of the special kid on behalf of people in special needs, and two chairmen of ÍTR and a chairman of Vesturbæjarlaug as real change-makers. It was successfully shown in the final presentation where none of over a hundred asked facilities for the disabled while two-thrids of answers were mainly about more fun experience in water and entertainment.