I am honoured to have been invited to sit on the Designing for People panel for the Redesign the Future Symposium as part of Design Monat [Month] Graz 2021 in Austria from 16:00 on the 11th of May 2021. I will be presenting an 8-minute lecture and then participate in a panel discussion on the topic with Emanuel Barbosa, Mariana Goncálex de la Rosa and Sigrid Bürstmayr. Emanuel is a designer, design educator and curator at ESAD—Arte Matosinhos Porto, Porto Design Biennale; Mariana is Coordinator of the Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design, Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla; and Sigrid, who invited me to join the panel, is a Lecturer at FH|JOANNEUM idk_ Institut Design & Kommunikation.

“Design Monat [Month] Graz bundles and condenses the energy of the local creative industries within one month, makes it visible to the outside world and thus makes a central contribution to anchoring the creative industries in people’s consciousness. It provides a space for innovative projects – be it experimental or commercial – and thus heightens the perception of the meaning of design: it is not about purely decorative behaviors (design as styling), but about the economic relevance (design as development and value added process) as well as the transformational power of design in economy and society.” I am really looking forward to it!

The abstract of my lecture with is titled “design with & beyond people” is as follows:

Most designers want to “change the world” and although design processes have become more participatory, when working in contexts with extreme inequality and within communities that are not one’s own, it is difficult to manage bias. Most of my design work in South Africa has been passionately focused on local and sustainable innovation at the nexus of complex social and technological systems. Using a conscious decolonial method, I have found that identifying local lay design innovation and then using my design expertise to amplify existing grassroots passion and creativity can lead to far more authentic and sustainable outcomes. However, with expanding environmental crises, designers need to situate themselves not only in human contexts but also bridge into broader ecological systems.