Conference Agenda

Within this paper, a white, fat, queer, trans nonbinary designer and educator uses a critical autoethnographic approach to examine the ways in which they have centered fat bodies. This is done through examination of two experiences: a design project creating fat letterforms and a pedagogical activity discussing bias in AI where they say fat in the classroom. By examining each narrative using a defined procedure, the author analyzes how fatphobia and other systems have negatively influenced the inclusion of fat bodies within design. Their analysis thus produces specific takeaways of how to name and resist this system. Using this approach while highlighting the lack of literature regarding fat bodies and design, the author positions this paper toward expanding the design field to be inclusive of fat bodies. This work orients design toward equitable practices while resisting a growingly inequitable political and cultural climate in the USA and internationally.

Design is increasingly engaging with the body through soft systems, wearables, and responsive materials, exploring how material interactions shape experiences of care and inclusion. This paper examines the Age Gain Now Empathy System (AGNES) - a wearable suit simulating the chronic physical conditions and functional changes associated with older age - as a critical, soma-focused design intervention. Drawing on auto-ethnographic reflection and participant observation, we present a theoretical and methodological analysis. We argue that AGNES' critical materiality actively mediates how the ageing body is read and made visible, inviting embodied understanding and supporting co-creation partnerships. We analyse how this wearable shifts bodily perception and movement, serving as a tool to deconstruct normative assumptions about age and ability. Finally, we reflect on the ethics of employing a prosthetic system, offering AGNES as a model for how material-body interactions can resist extractive design practices and inform more inclusive approaches.

This paper explores how e-textile musical interface can reimagine the relationship between body and instrument from a feminist perspective. Drawing on a practice-based research project, the study examines how soft, deformable materials and embodied interaction can challenge the masculine-coded logic of control that dominates digital musical instrument (DMI) design. Constructed from knitted conductive textiles, the interface functions both as musical controller and prostheses that redistributes agency between performer and instrument. Through design practice, reflective performance, and a somatic experiment with another performer, the research investigates the entangled relationship between performer and instrument from a feminist perspective. The findings suggest that in DMI design, the embodied feminist perspectives that value fluidity, ambiguity, and entanglement over precision and mastery can inspire different musical expressions and shifting control to co-agency and negotiation.

This research frames colour and print as responsive strategies to challenge entrenched aesthetic norms and empower diverse bodies. It explores how dynamic visual patterns and colour psychology can disrupt static perceptions of body shape, moving beyond the confines of normative ideals. Through an iterative, research-through-design process, the study develops motifs and colourways that foster aesthetic agency, self-confidence, and vitality. By treating surface design as an embodied material interface, dynamic visual elements (such as moiré effects and gradients) are integrated to sustain novelty and reduce aesthetic fatigue. This approach re-frames emotional durability not just as longevity, but as the capacity for a garment to facilitate an ongoing, fluid, and playful human-garment relationship. This study demonstrates how design can address sustainable goals by using psychological and perceptual strategies to support a more inclusive and critically engaged relationship with our clothing.

Women’s mental well-being is deeply intertwined with their bodily experiences across different life stages. While embroidery has long been associated with domestic femininity, little is known about how its embodied qualities can support women’s mental well-being. This paper presents a co-creation workshop titled Embodied Embroidery, followed by micro-phenomenological and semi-structured interviews. Eight female participants engaged with embroidery to reconnect with their bodies and translate embodied sensations into material expressions. The findings reveal how embodied making can nurture different dimensions of women’s mental well-being while opening up new design spaces for embroidery activities among women across diverse age groups and cultural backgrounds. This paper contributes to design research by introducing an embodied, craft-based method for engaging with women’s well-being and by articulating design implications for integrating embroidery as a reflective and restorative practice.

Walking is approached not merely as a bodily act but as a phenomenon shaped by its historical, cultural, and spatial meanings, along with its relationship to the ground. Its historical continuity has made walking a constitutive element of social norms and bodily behavior patterns. The study seeks to reconceptualize walking not as rhythmic, standardized motion but as a relational experience, foregrounded through its intentional disruption. Such disruption prompts a questioning of biological and cultural codes, as the body becomes fragile when departing from the habitual. The first phase, conducted in Istanbul, explored the disruption of walking through body-movement experiments using a podal extension. The second phase, carried out in Samsun through a researcher-led workshop, invited participants to examine the material aspects of walking and reflect on embodied experience. Overall, the study offers an experimental and critical ground for rethinking the body and the act of walking.