Stories from our cosmos.
This research explores transformational paths towards pluriversal ways of doing-thinking-being in/with design through participatory experiences.
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For this, it brings the Mesoamerican-rooted concept of Cosmovision, understood as a system of world(s) perception(s) to become a self-reflexive space for wandering, encountering and visualising those multiple worlds.
For this, it brings the Mesoamerican-rooted concept of Cosmovision, understood as a system of world(s) perception(s) to become a self-reflexive space for wandering, encountering and visualising those multiple worlds.
Why?
This research journey started motivated by a deep personal discomfort with the way I was practicing design and an increasing perception of the inadequacy of north-western based knowledge, tools and methods that I was applying in participatory contexts as a consultant in strategic and service design for mostly corporate clients.
This led to a process of critical reflection around my know-how as a participatory design practitioner and the exploration for possible paths for praxis transformation.
Arturo Escobar called it a modern Cosmovision that imposes western worldviews and ways of being.
This is an invitation to challenge those dominant narratives to include “many worlds” (or multiple “cosmos”) through personal reflective practices, to decolonise and recover agency over the stories we tell about ourselves.
This research journey started motivated by a deep personal discomfort with the way I was practicing design and an increasing perception of the inadequacy of north-western based knowledge, tools and methods that I was applying in participatory contexts as a consultant in strategic and service design for mostly corporate clients.
This led to a process of critical reflection around my know-how as a participatory design practitioner and the exploration for possible paths for praxis transformation.
Arturo Escobar called it a modern Cosmovision that imposes western worldviews and ways of being.
This is an invitation to challenge those dominant narratives to include “many worlds” (or multiple “cosmos”) through personal reflective practices, to decolonise and recover agency over the stories we tell about ourselves.
Ahmed Ansari argues the importance for designers to include different ways of making sense of the world :
Pablo Calderon Salazar reflects on the role that designers can play in decentering design practice through stories:
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“here I use the word cosmology instead of culture to denote that what we are talking about are large constellations of ontologies that structure the ways in which human communities make sense of the cosmos they exist in.”
Pablo Calderon Salazar reflects on the role that designers can play in decentering design practice through stories:
“Perhaps the role of the designer should not be that of a storyteller –for it is a role with high risks of falling into the ‘single story’—but more in the realm of a multiple stories enabler.”
How?
The acts are named in that way to avoid all the presuppositions and assumptions that the idea of a “workshop” carries under north-western traditional participatory practices. It also proposes a critical approach for tools and methods that seeks to dismantle notions of control and certainties which are at the core of those traditional depictions of design with others.
In the acts participants are invited to wander and drift through the idea of cosmovision, to recognise their own premises, to then find themselves in “otherwise” (dis)positions.
How to participate?
There are limited spots considering the intimate kind of reflections that participants express about themselves.
For more information you can contact the researcher here.
Act 00 : 22/03/2023@RMIT DesignHub
Act 01 : 22/04/2023 @ Footscray
Act 02 : 22/05/2023 @ Melbourne Design Week
Act 03 : 29/11/2023 @ Interdesigning Symposium
This project acknowledges the Wurundjeri people as the traditional owners of the land on which this research is developed, and respectfully recognises Elders past and present. Always was, always will be.