Unsettling conventions of Dominant Design
Shana Agid offering their Acknowledgement as a chair for a 8 people panel discussion at PDC2022 Conference in Newcastle (UK)
ServDes.2020 Conference keynote page, showing images of the speakers, Professor Norman Sheehan and Dr Tristan Schultz
Ethical and respectful principles outlined on ServDes.2020 Conference website
Being Together Guide outlined on the PDC2022 Conference website
Screenshots of 25 presenters and Chairs during PDC2022, offering Acknowledgement
My recent practice (2018-2022) has inadvertently explored ways to decolonise and unsettle Dominant conventions in Design, which ossify through repetition, such as reoccurring international conferences. As a General Co-chair of two prestigious conferences – Service Design and Innovation (ServDes.2020) and Participatory Design Conference (PDC2022) – these opportunities offered a chance to trouble conventions through questions around labour, privilege and exclusion. These conferences leveraged the organising mechanisms to surface implicit agendas, interrogate normalised approaches and confront tensions and paradoxes of decolonising our own practices. The collaborative endeavours through practice and ko-ontologies of becoming together through mind-body-spirit, offered many learnings and thoughts towards what is yet still to do in exploring the ethics of being present and situated when we come together.