Part of the Collective Praxis as Designing Radicality seminar hosted by the Counter-Framing Design project.
Abstract: Most design theories and design methods are crafted to support the current hegemonies in society. While trying to sustain these hegemonies, designers eventually realize they are unsustainable, unfair, or dehumanizing. Among them, designers who develop a bit of critical consciousness rightly feel the need to shift from designing for to designing against hegemonies. More often than not, they immediately lose critical consciousness by countering hegemony through naiveté: by rejecting design theories and methods entirely. Unequipped, designing against staying at the safe side of speculating reactions without taking consequential measures. Guided by the Latin American tradition of critical thinking, the Laboratory of Design against Oppression (LADO) at UTFPR does not reject design theories and methods but redefines their purposes. In this lab, the decolonization of design epistemologies goes hand in hand with the hybridization of design methodologies. In this talk, selected projects from LADO and from the Design & Oppression network will be displayed to illustrate this point.
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