Conference Agenda

This workshop invites participants to queer their disciplinary and pedagogical practices by making Index Wheels. The Index Wheels will be a Riso printed resource that will map: methods, references, gestures, and milestones in the participants own practice or teaching. The workshop will be a participatory, hands-on session involving critical making and collaborative reflection facilitated by Nina and Saffie jointly, using a series of specific prompts. 

Through these guided prompts participants will collectively make and discuss how queer theory, critical pedagogy and design research can intersect to create more relational and experimental design practices that move away from fixed outcomes and instead form adaptable systems of learning and making. The prompts are inspired by discussions with designers and researchers who we were in conversation with for a publication we created titled, Queering Interdisciplinarity.

The aim is to build a holistic overview of how knowledge and practice emerge across multiple modes. Connecting making with thinking, the mind with the hand, this project frames queerness as a navigational tool; one that resists singular definitions and embraces fluid, embodied knowledge. We are thinking of an Index as a gauge that points toward something and in this way, the Index Wheel can be understood as a: circular, tactile system that organises and points to key elements of a practice (such as methods, references, gestures, or milestones) in a way you can rotate or navigate and use as a guide.