Journeying With Kala: Exploring Interdependencies Of Material, Land, And Maker In Shaping Textile Practices,
2025
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Journeying With Kala: Exploring Interdependencies Of Material, Land, And Maker In Shaping Textile Practices, Mithila Amy Mohan
Nordes Conference Series
Accompanied by Kala, an indigenous cotton from Kutch, India, this study examines the interdependencies of land, material, and maker that are fostered in textile practices. It explores materials as companions in practice, shaping the trajectory of making through their processual entanglements with human and more-than-human environments. The research employs a practice-led methodology integrating historical review of cotton in India, ethnographic inquiry into practices related to Kala in Kutch, and hands-on weaving experiments. The weaving explorations with Kala, seen as a process of correspondence, detail the role of materials in making, where environmental conditions, material properties, and practitioner interactions shape the …
Developing Ai Literacy Through Design Education,
2025
Halmstad University
Developing Ai Literacy Through Design Education, Simon Norris, Yi Luo, Andrea Resmini, Dimitrios Gkouskos
Nordes Conference Series
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years is observable by its increasing adoption in various domains. Generative AI technologies have furthered this trend, yet AI remains opaque by nature and design. This poses challenges for designers of AI-enabled products, who need to understand materials properties to design effectively, emphasising a need for AI literacy, a multidimensional competency encompassing ethical, cognitive, and practical skills. The study explores how three distinct design practices, Research through Design, Human-Centred Design, and Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence, can help students develop AI literacy. We carried out the study with a class of eighteen graduate …
Re-Imagining The Landscape Of Future Farming,
2025
IT University of Copenhagen
Re-Imagining The Landscape Of Future Farming, Martin Abildgaard Padalak, Tom Jenkins
Nordes Conference Series
This paper explores how participatory design methods can engage future farmers in imagining sustainable agricultural futures in Denmark. Denmark's agricultural sector faces a "crisis of imagination" where dominant paradigms in farming are hard to challenge. Building on Ingold's notion of the landscape as a relational, temporal space for dwelling, we propose a conceptualization of the landscape game that enables farming students to articulate their visions of future farming. The design game creates opportunities for participants to situate their imagined farms within broader social, environmental, and technical contexts while exploring how these might evolve over time. This approach aims to generate …
A Relational Design Framework For Designing Feminist Futures In The Finnish Popular Music Sector,
2025
NODUS Sustainable Design Research Group, Department of Design, Aalto University
A Relational Design Framework For Designing Feminist Futures In The Finnish Popular Music Sector, Tomi Rantanen, Tatu Marttila, Idil Gaziulusoy
Nordes Conference Series
Designers often address wicked problems using collaborative tools with stakeholders. Transition arenas are one such method used to co-create future agendas of change that is increasingly used in design research. Building on community organisation, we argue for more critical assessment of participant interrelations to achieve lasting social change. Consequently, we call for a shift of focus from the transition arena tools and processes to consider relational aspects of participation. Our research context is promoting gender equality in the music sector. Based on expert interviews, a pilot workshop, and an expert panel, we identify and elaborate design considerations for effective community …
Lost In Generation: Illustrating Stable Diffusion Ai’S Colonial Bias In Representing South African Communication Design,
2025
University of Pretoria
Lost In Generation: Illustrating Stable Diffusion Ai’S Colonial Bias In Representing South African Communication Design, Kyle Rath, Fatima Cassim, Adrie Haese
Nordes Conference Series
Generative AI (gAI) image models are increasingly being used as tools for conceptualisation and visualisation in design. These models are, however, not neutral owing to training datasets that prioritise Western aesthetics. Consequently, an emergent challenge is that AI-generated images tend to disregard nuanced representations. Li et al. (2024) echo this critique, acknowledging AI’s inability to comprehend cultural complexity, a critical issue in South Africa’s given its colonial and apartheid past. Accordingly, we use a relational design lens to critically examine how Stable Diffusion fails to engage with South Africa’s diverse cultural makeup; we present a qualitative content analysis of AI-generated …
Aestheticising Material Imperfections: Diverse Waste,
2025
Aalborg University
Aestheticising Material Imperfections: Diverse Waste, Nikoline Sander, Linda Nhu Laursen
Nordes Conference Series
Using discarded materials from manufacturing is a design strategy to support a sustainable future by using already circulating resources. This study introduces the visions of pluralism to the design activity of designing an aesthetic unity with materials previously rejected for their imperfections. Drawing on the psychophysical, organisational, and meaningful properties, the research examines a best-case study involving the design of an indoor door made from wasted pinewood. Emphasising the design of joints and transitions internally in the door, the designers achieve aesthetic unity through the deliberate composition of pinewood pieces, characterised by soft, rounded transitions between them. Designing meetings between …
Slack Lines: Comprehending Grace In Entangled Worlds,
2025
Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design
Slack Lines: Comprehending Grace In Entangled Worlds, Erik Sandelin
Nordes Conference Series
Designers increasingly celebrate more-than-human entanglement, touch, hybridity and care as antidotes to ecological devastation and animal exploitation. However, embroiling other animals in human realms can be a kiss of death for the animal. How is grace – careful and creative moves away from the other – possible in entangled worlds? Through the design experiment Fishwatching – a reconfigured angling setup where you catch fish on camera instead of on a hook – I articulate four tensors for comprehending grace in interdependent relational design: the taut line of human supremacy, the severed line of emancipation and the constricting net of entanglement. …
Rethinking Self-Diagnosis: Bridging Doctor And Patient Perspectives,
2025
Middle East Technical University
Rethinking Self-Diagnosis: Bridging Doctor And Patient Perspectives, Melis Dursun Ugras, Guzin Sen, Asli Gunay
Nordes Conference Series
The rise of digital health technologies has reshaped the patient’s role in healthcare, enabling greater autonomy in managing health and making medical decisions. Self-diagnosis tools, including AI-driven applications, symptom checkers, and online health platforms, allow individuals to assess symptoms and explore potential conditions before consulting a healthcare professional. While these tools offer increased access to health information, they also raise concerns about misinformation, misinterpretation, and their impact on patient-provider relationships. This study examines how both patients and healthcare professionals perceive self-diagnosis, identifying tension points and shared concerns that shape its role in healthcare interactions. To explore these perspectives, we conducted …
Homework: The Politics Of Participatory Design In Distributed Contexts,
2025
Malmö University
Homework: The Politics Of Participatory Design In Distributed Contexts, Alicia Smedberg, Jens Portinson Hylander
Nordes Conference Series
This paper examines the evolving nature of participatory design as it shifts from co-located, real-time engagements to asynchronous, delegated participation—a transformation conceptualized here as homework. Through two case studies—a toolkit for activist self-organization and a workbook-based remote design process—the paper explores how participation, when structured as homework, redistributes agency, responsibility, and knowledge production across time and space. The analysis of this paper highlights how Participatory Design, when mediated through artifacts such as toolkits and workbooks, can both enable and constrain engagement, shaping power dynamics and the ethics of care in distributed collaboration. The discussion critically examines how delegation impacts environmental …
Attending To Right Relations In Design: Lessons From Foraging,
2025
The Oslo School of Architecture and Design
Attending To Right Relations In Design: Lessons From Foraging, Serina Tarkhanian
Nordes Conference Series
Despite recognizing the profound relevance of Indigenous knowledges to the relational turn, few posthuman design researchers elaborate on the considerations and implications of working from these rich sources of insight for material practice. In this paper, I develop an attention to the Indigenous relational framework of Right Relations in design from the perspective of studentship, considering how Indigenous ethical frameworks might be engaged with from the position of a non-Indigenous person. Building on insights from my own research experience in foraging for design materials, I use narratives to exemplify part of what attending to Right Relations in design implies. I …
In Relation: Brazilian Indigenous Fashion Design,
2025
Aalto University
In Relation: Brazilian Indigenous Fashion Design, Julia Valle-Noronha
Nordes Conference Series
Contemporary applications of indigenous and ancient knowledge systems are seen as an opportunity to reestablish relationships of care and respect. This paper investigates how contemporary indigenous fashion designers in Brazil enmesh indigenous thinking in their practice. The paper starts by laying out discussions on indigenous knowledge systems and its relationships with design. Following, the indigenous fashion phenomena in Brazil is introduced and analysed through data collected via interviews and desktop research. To conclude, possible more than human directions that challenge the current paradigms in western fashion design practices are exposed. They are: relational practices, more than human notions of time …
Healing Through Collective Textile-Making: Crafting Objects, Places, And Communities,
2025
Ulster University
Healing Through Collective Textile-Making: Crafting Objects, Places, And Communities, Lilyana Yazirlıoğlu, Cindy Kohtala, Heather Wiltse
Nordes Conference Series
Intensifying social and environmental challenges demands restructuring sustainable design frameworks in which communities’ resilience and empowerment are at the forefront. This research draws insights into that by engaging with textile-making communities located across Northern Ireland and Umeå/Sweden to examine their role in creating and networking resistance. It contributes to recognizing social and collective dimensions of sustainability by exploring how textile-making practices foster agency and solidarity. To examine the textile communities’ making practices, the intersection of three key concepts is used: craftivism by Greer (2008), third places theorized by Oldenburg (1989), and communities of practice drawing on Wenger’s (1998) framework. These …
Design Facilitation Skills: Discrepancies Between Research Focus And Industry Needs In Us Job Postings,
2025
Arizona State University
Design Facilitation Skills: Discrepancies Between Research Focus And Industry Needs In Us Job Postings, Wenqi Zheng, Mauricio Mejia, Catalina Cortes
Nordes Conference Series
In design, designers often act as facilitators, helping cross-functional teams capture, evaluate, and integrate diverse ideas to create improved products. While the broader application of facilitation has been extensively explored, the specific demand for design facilitation in the industry remains understudied. This study bridges the gap by exploring the call for design facilitation in the U.S. job market. Through a content analysis of job postings and a novel approach for tracking skill trends over time, we identify key design facilitation-related skill employers seek, uncovering four patterns. We also discuss implications for design education, proposing curriculum changes to better prepare students …
Designing For Multispecies Affordances: A Poetics Of Control,
2025
Konstfack
Designing For Multispecies Affordances: A Poetics Of Control, Martin Avila, Nelly Mäekivi, Erik Andersson
Nordes Conference Series
This workshop will engage participants in an exercise that conceives experimental design practices that involve communication with other-than-human species. The process encourages a shift away from human-centred control, creating conditions that allow other species to manifest their own behaviours. This is important since the dominant global material culture of design does not acknowledge the presence and interaction of other species with things designed, erasing biodiversity as human habits repeat anthropocentric and destructive ecological patterns. Building on the work of J. J. Gibson’s concept of affordances, and other work that conform the emerging field that today is understood as posthumanism, the …
An Adventure With Ai: A Relational Techno-Life Design Approach,
2025
ShanghaiTech University
An Adventure With Ai: A Relational Techno-Life Design Approach, Yue Zou, Shenhuan Lu, Yile Zhang
Nordes Conference Series
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into ecosystems necessitates a paradigm shift in design thinking, moving beyond anthropocentric models to embrace relational frameworks. This paper proposes relational techno-life design, an approach to reconceptualize AI as co-constitutive agents within socio material networks and broad ecological system. Through speculative case studies—LOVOT, LO, and AquaGuardian—we analyze how relational techno-life design can foster symbiotic relationships across human, nonhuman, and AI. An eco-cultural-techno framework reveals the potential for AI to mediate ecological resilience, cultural practices, and ethical co-evolution, while critiquing anthropocentric hierarchies and dualisms. The study contributes to relational design theory by advocating for nondualist …
Co-Creating The Good Life Through Food-Based Inquiry,
2025
Umeå University, Sweden
Co-Creating The Good Life Through Food-Based Inquiry, Danielle Wilde, Leena Naqvi, Mary Karyda
Nordes Conference Series
Food and eating (re)connect humans daily with worlds within and beyond us. From the trillions of microorganisms that help make us who we are; through the socio-culturally and tangibly graspable people, animals, plants, fungi and algae that we cohabit with; to decreasingly relatable systems of food production and provisioning across the planet, food stitches us together. We provide four mini cases to consider how using food as a methodology for experimental design research can build relations towards ensuring ‘the good life.’ We explore what the good life is, why relationality sits at its heart, and provide a framework for using …
Exploring The "Human Norm" In Design: Integrating More-Than-Human And Norm-Critical Design Approaches,
2025
Halmstad University, ITE
Exploring The "Human Norm" In Design: Integrating More-Than-Human And Norm-Critical Design Approaches, Katerina Cerna, Yi Luo, Britta Teleman
Nordes Conference Series
As designers, we design from a human perspective—a position we cannot change but must critically reflect upon. This workshop addresses this fundamental challenge: the invisible "human norm" in design. While norm-critical approaches have explored norms, the most profound invisible norm is simply our existence as humans. This is particularly significant as we confront environmental crises demanding design beyond human needs. We integrate two complementary approaches: more-than-human design, which challenges the assumption that "human-centeredness" represents a neutral viewpoint, and norm-critical design, which makes invisible norms visible. Our 3-hour workshop engages participants in interactive activities analyzing human norms, shifting perspectives, creating norm-critical …
Relational Design For More-Than-Human Narratives,
2025
Kristiania University of Applied Sciences
Relational Design For More-Than-Human Narratives, Margaret Rynning, Lene Utigard, Annette Briest Kriszat
Nordes Conference Series
This workshop explores the intersection of relational design, storytelling, and more-than-human perspectives to challenge anthropocentric assumptions and foster deeper ecological awareness. Through speculative and sensory-based design interventions, participants will engage with local edible wild plants, highlighting their agency and cultural significance. By addressing the phenomenon of "plant blindness" and incorporating multimodal storytelling, the session aims to reframe human-nature relationships, cultivating empathy and care for non-human entities. Participants will co-create speculative narratives, experiment with sensory engagement, and develop ethical frameworks for more regenerative design practices. The workshop encourages designers and researchers to rethink their roles, embracing interdependence, sustainability, and justice in …
In The Relational Sandbox: Deep Democracy And Technology,
2025
University of Oslo
In The Relational Sandbox: Deep Democracy And Technology, Alma Leora Culén, Nicholas Sebastian Stevens, Jasmin Niess, Sisse Finken, Jason Miklian, Kristian Hoelscher
Nordes Conference Series
Designing for democracy often emphasizes values but underestimates the role of relationships in shaping civic life. This workshop explores how relationality - our social ties, political agency, and economic conditions - affects grassroots democratic design experiments and the technologies they inspire. Grounded in deep democracy and participatory approaches, we engage in small-scale experiments using Relational Sandbox to explore how new technologies that support democratic values can reshape power dynamics and how locally rooted, tailored designs can counteract capital-driven technological development. By experimenting with relational civics, we will collectively imagine new design strategies that prioritize meaningful technologies for deep democracy over …
An Exploration On Relationality And Decoloniality In Participatory Design Based On Care,
2025
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano
An Exploration On Relationality And Decoloniality In Participatory Design Based On Care, Annalinda De Rosa, Milagros Hurtig, Marco Andrea Finardi
Nordes Conference Series
How is positionality brought into participatory practices? How are moments for self-reflection created in participatory design? How do design researchers challenge colonial perspectives in design? The workshop aims to create a space for a collective reflection on the need to undo the narratives of modernity and the cult of futurity that brings to the ubiquitous discourse on innovation as the only possible path for a better future. The workshop experiments with materiality as a channel to collectively explore how designing – as a transformative action embracing relationality – could adopt a pluriversal mindset. It furthers the discussion on relationality, elucidating …
