Sall and Terry,
I enjoyed your thoughts and interests in the roll of design in rituals. My comments will be quite short. But in my view rituals are stories in active form. A major issue in your research would seem to be to find out what stories get ritualized and why they are. I encouraged my design students to examine rituals that were evident in their own lives and to design something that captured them in order that they may continue to be remembered. This turned out to be a very motivating task for some students who came from a background where certain rituals at home or in their town were cherished. For example, one student from a town where the ritual of St George slaying the dragon was celebrated annually by a parade of relics, decided to design a desk lamp to remind him of home, the ritual, and its components: they included symbols of 3 saints cherished respectively by masons, farmers, and writers. His design was for a desk light that shown down on a “field”, sheltered by a wall, from which a writing pen was drawn to “slay the dragon" of ignorance. He may still have the light on his desk. Artifacts are better if they have a background story that have meanings that people want to recall. I could probably find a picture and write up of the lamp if that would be useful to you.
Please let me know how your research turns out.
Chuck
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