Julian Gasson
Emergent design discourse is increasingly influenced by the interconnected crises occurring at this present moment in deep time, collectively referred to as the polycrisis. As a result, scholars and practitioners continue to offer new ways for challenging the social-technical imaginaries and processes underpinning the Anthropocene. To add to this offering, this presentation presents doctoral research which positions an integration of relationality into design theory and practice as a possible pathway for catalysing systemic change. Theoretically anchored in systemic design, transition design, pluriversal design, and regenerative design, the doctoral research is set to explore how relational dynamics can enable the emergence of more just and desirable futures on a living planet. The presentation briefly presents preliminary findings from three practice-based, design-lead research projects concerning shared housing, youth recruitment into organised crime, and fossil-plastic consumption. Through applying a relational sensibility to the analysis, situated relations and imaginaries have been revealed as well as some potential interventional mechanisms for enabling actors to relate otherwise. These findings are sketched out through the ‘two loops’ model of systemic change, and some examples of stewarding, hospicing, composting, and nurturing within the dominant and emergent systems are lifted. The presentation argues for the integration of relational sensibilities into design practice and research so that these may better support pluriversal transitions beyond rationalist-cartesian social-technical imaginaries and towards regenerative forms of more interconnected living.
Keywords: systemic design, relationality, pluriversal systemic change, practice-based design research