My name is Victoria Carter and I am a first year Masters candidate at Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University. I moved to New York from London last September, where I spent several years working as a digital and innovation consultant. During that time I began to consider how design and innovation could be used as tools for sustainable social change. At Gallatin I am pursuing these interests by studying a range of courses from innovation and design to environmental sustainability and urban studies.
This summer I am a 2017 Gallatin Global Fellow in Urban Practice in Madrid, working with El Patio Maravillas. El Patio is an organization who have occupied various sites in Madrid, building community centers in these unoccupied sites and actively campaigning for affordable housing and anti-gentrification. In parallel to my work with El Patio, I will be researching my Masters thesis, which focuses on participatory design and social innovation in Madrid. My central research question will be to examine how community organizations in Madrid use participatory design processes to assert their rights to the city and facilitate a broader conception of urban social resilience.
