Conference Agenda

There is a need for spaces that can support reflecting on and reimagining design, and redirecting it toward sustainment and justice. Such spaces would necessarily operate with the understanding that design is ontological and has political consequences. We might think of such spaces as metabolic design museums. In this paper, we imagine how metabolic museums might help to redesign design through keeping process at their heart and critically unpacking design’s involvement in urgencies as well as possibilities to envision and move towards more just futures. To do this, we build on intersectional feminist analysis of existing design museums through museum visits and participatory workshops, as well as inspiration from activist spaces; and we speculate about how feminist tactics applied by para-museums could catalyze transformational processes. If those processes were successful, a design museum would then enter into a state of continuous metabolization and become able to contribute to transforming design.

This paper advocates for the potential of feminist participatory practices to create conditions for inclusive and equitable futures. It addresses the need to design for transformative feminist futures and challenges normative innovation spaces. The authors reflect on their experiences organising two feminist hackathons, emphasising intersectionality, equity, and collaboration. They present 11 design principles that guided their efforts, highlighting the importance of centring local grassroots organisations. The paper discusses the potential of these design principles as tools for community engagement, nurturing collective imagination, and normalising feminist practices in collaborative spaces. It emphasises the importance of moving from embodied knowledge to embodying knowledge and integrating values and experiences into the infrastructure of innovation events. The authors acknowledge the challenges in operationalising principles, such as valuing labour and expertise, and raise questions about commitment and responsibility in inclusive, feminist events. This work contributes to the discourse on designing conditions for co-creating feminist imaginaries.

The dominant model of a resource-intensive linear economy has resulted in

excessive production and consumption, leading to the depletion of natural resources

and significant waste generation. Transitioning to a circular economy (CE) is crucial for

achieving more sustainable production-consumption systems. However, the CE

discourses have been dominated by technological and manufacturing solutions, with

relatively less attention to developing circular consumption practices and establishing

pathways for everyday participation. This article presents the findings of a Master's

thesis that explored the gendered aspects of circular consumption and its challenges

for individuals in Denmark and Southern Sweden. The research shows that a gender-

sensitive approach is necessary to address these challenges. However, designer

practitioners encounter systemic barriers to integrating gender sensitivity in design

processes and teams, including lacking involvement in user research, insufficient

funding for gender-sensitive participant recruitment, or feeling intimidated to discuss

gender in front of other team members and decision-makers.

In this article we examine Commoners Press, an experimental letterpress in Australia, from the perspectives of public pedagogy, transition design, and pluriversalism. Since 2017 the press has re-activated its anachronistic 70–100-year-old letterpress machines, bringing them back into play in the community through participatory workshops. Participants collaborate while producing visual images and set type that respond to their current community with articulations of ‘everyday life’ as fundamental precursors to sustainable transition (Irwin et al., 2015). This work brings participants together in a collaborative, materially augmented conversation, and collective imagining of possible futures, all different, all together (Escobar, 2017). Positioned as 'public pedagogy' (Charman & Dixon, 2021), it utilises 'warm data' (Bateson, 2017) to facilitate ‘interpretive communities’ (Santos, 2017) through ‘counterfactual actions’ (Forlano & Halpern, 2023). The discussion explores how projects like this might allow us to understand what it means to design for ‘human scale’ in the age of the Anthropocene.

The Action Learning (AL) master course at the Universitat Politècnica de València endorses during 3 months the collaboration of the students and professors with community leaders from the vulnerable district of Orriols. By combining the diverse backgrounds of the students and the community leaders, it fosters a deeper and collaborative understanding of complex societal issues of the district. Through systems thinking and design thinking tools, they diagnose the context, envision a desired future, and take action to realize it in a transformative and creative way. It creates a bidirectional learning environment, engaging with real-world challenges and breaking down barriers between the university and the local community. This transformative learning experience is underpinned by a commitment to just transitions, emphasizing procedural, recognition, and epistemic justice. By embracing these principles, the course empowers participants to contribute to positive change in their communities and fosters a more inclusive, sustainable city and university.