Disarming Design – Politics of participatory practices – PhD defence Annelys de Vet (29/11/2024)

• 29 November 2024, Sint Lucas School of Arts (Showroom), Van Schoonbekestraat 143, Antwerp – no registration needed but a message of participation is appreciated via annelys.devet@kdg.be
  • 14:30  Doors and exhibition open
  • 15:00  Presentation and defence
  • 17:00  Reception
• Supervisors: Pascal Gielen (University of Antwerp), Petra Van Brabandt (Sint Lucas Antwerpen) 

Abstract

The public defence and the exhibition ‘Disarming Design, politics of participatory practices’ presents a dissertation, an installation and the series of Subjective Atlases along with objects from Palestine.

In our current political and economic landscape, sustaining an emancipatory design practice—one that aligns with progressive political beliefs and social values—poses significant challenges. My practice-based research explores how political agency can be strengthened in these conditions by engaging in participatory design processes.

The installation and dissertation document three long-term, self-directed, and participatory projects: a series of books (the Subjective Atlas series), a design label (Disarming Design from Palestine), and a master’s programme (Disarming Design at Sandberg Instituut). Each collaborative platform originated as a counterproposal that activates design as a methodology to amplify voices, mobilise communities, and create new opportunities. Aesthetics play a crucial role in this work, shaping the sensory, material, and emotional dynamics of our spaces, the materials we engage with, and the hospitality we practise. 

By detailing the processes and outcomes of each of the three projects, from initiation to materialisation, and from distribution to impact, the dissertation offers an intimate and self-critical insight  into the politics, tensions, and possibilities of participatory design practices. At the core is a drive to ask: How can design be liberated from the goal of finding ‘solutions’ and become a practice of agency and solidarity?

^{Image: Production of ‘Identity = health’ facemask, Gaza 2020. Photo: Abed Zagout}