Affirming Potential. Design and Cohabitation

Martín Ávila, Professor of Design, Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm

In this KISDtalk, guest speaker Martín Ávila will consider ways of affirming myriad modes of living – human ones and other-than-human ones – through everyday artefacts. Ecological-political issues will be expressed by confronting us with aspects of anthropocentrism in design that make design activities short-sighted in relation to current understanding of ecological complexity. The title of the talk asserts positively: one the one hand, it indicates that the human activity we call design is capable of becoming responsable, capable of developing capacities to support interspecies cohabitation. On the other hand, it implies tension since the potential, the latency of this possibility may or may not be realized. Martin will illustrate his talk with proposals developed in Argentina during his postdoctoral project “Symbiotic tactics” (2013-2016).
Martín Avila is a designer, researcher and Professor of Design at Konstfack in Stockholm, Sweden. He holds a Master in Design Studies from Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London (1999) and a degree in Industrial Design from the National University of Córdoba, Argentina (1995). He received his PhD in 2012 with the dissertation “Devices. On Hospitality, Hostility and Design“

www.martinavila.com