Design researcher & educator

design body

1. 

   Critical consciousness in Prospective Design

   Prospective Design is a field of research opened by researchers from the Graduate Program in Prospective Design (PPGDP) at UTFPR, of which the proponent is one of the founders. Since 2019, the proponent has been conducting participatory workshops with faculty, students, and others interested in what would become PPGDP. The workshops are being recorded in […] - Feb 6, 2026
2. 

   Collective embodiment in service interfaces

   Van Amstel, Frederick M. C. , and Fernando Secomandi. (2025) Collective Embodiment in Service Interfaces. In Penin, L. de S., Prendiville, A. and Sangiorgi, D. (Eds), Bloomsbury Handbook of Service Design: Plural perspectives and a critical contemporary agenda, 305–316. London New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2025. - Jan 22, 2026
3. 

   The Relational Becoming of a Participatory Design Commoner

   Marttila, S., van Amstel, F., Saad-Sulonen, J., Botero, A., Poderi, G., Teli, M.,and Commoner, P.(2025) The Relational Becoming of a Participatory Design Commoner, in Brandt, E., Markussen, T., Berglund, E., Julier, G., Linde, P. (eds.), Nordes 2025: Relational Design, 6-8 August, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.22 - Jul 25, 2025
4. 

   The Materials of Service Design: Human bodies

   Secomandi, F., & van Amstel, F. (2023). Human bodies. In: Blonkvist, J; Clatworthy, S; Holmlid, S. The Materials of Service Design (pp. 167-172). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781802203301.00032 - Feb 5, 2024
5. 

   Wicked rituals of contemporary design thinking

   Saito, Carmem; Van Amstel, Frederick M. C.; Serpa, Bibiana O; Angelon, Rafaela. Wicked rituals of contemporary design thinking. (2023). In: Mehl, Johanna and Höfler, Carolin (Eds). Attending [to] Futures. Matters of Politics in Design Education, Research, Practice. Hamburg: Adocs. p. 150-161. http://doi.org/10.53198/9783943253726 - Dec 11, 2023
6. 

   Assembling collective bodies to take care of the commons

   As part of the Participatory Design Conference 2022, I joined P.D. Commoners, a self-managed collective of researchers working at the boundaries of commoning and designing, to organize a workshop on Relationality, Commoning, and Designing. After the workshop, we recorded a podcast with Joanna Sad-Sulonen and Giacomo Poderi to summarize and share the workshop experience with […] - Jan 11, 2023
7. 

   Relationality, commoning, and designing

   Poderi, G., Marttila, S. M., Saad-Sulonen, J., Van Amstel, F. M., Teli, M., Tonolli, L., D’Andrea, V. & Botero, A. (2022, August). Relationality, commoning, and designing. In Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2022-Volume 2 (pp. 255-258). https://doi.org/10.1145/3537797.3537879 - Aug 24, 2022
8. 

   Radical Alterity in Experience Design

   Abstract: In Experience Design, we typically learn to design experiences for others, the users. While drawing this distinction between us and them, we block the potential to change who we are by designing for ourselves. Radical alterity means including the Other as part of the Self. It is a concept crafted on decolonial Brazilian anthropophagic […] - Jun 22, 2021
9. 

   Monster aesthetics as an expression of decolonizing the design body

   Angelon, Rafaela and Van Amstel, Frederick M.C. (2021) Monster aesthetics as an expression of decolonizing the design body. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 20(1), pp. 83-102(20). https://doi.org/10.1386/adch_00031_1 - Jun 9, 2021
10. 

    Theater of the Techno-Oppressed

    Despite all the hype and hope around it, the technologies developed by universities and research institutions were not necessarily always good for society. Many of those have been instrumentalized to globalize fascism, xenophobia, sexism, and racism. Theater of the Techno-Oppressed is an outreach activity that brings universities closer to their surrounding communities to publicly question, prevent, […] - Apr 6, 2020

हरे कृष्ण हरे कृष्ण कृष्ण कृष्ण हरे हरे हरे राम हरे राम राम राम हरे हरे