Universidade da Madeira

Publication Date: 09/04/2026

Imagination Talks: Design as a Political Practice

Imagination Talks - Mestrado em Design & Licenciatura em Design - DAD - FAH - UMa
With Annalinda De Rosa (Assistant Professor - Design Department of Politecnico di Milano (Polimi DESIS Lab), Silvia Cantalupi (PhD Candidate and Research Fellow - Design Department of Politecnico di Milano), Maria Maramotti (PhD Candidate - Design Department of Politecnico di Milano (Polimi DESIS Lab, laboratoriocarcere), Melania Vicentini (Visiting Assistant Professor - SDA School of Design and Architecture, ADA University (Azerbaijan))

Design as a Political Practice: power, interdependences, and exclusions

This lecture series brings together four perspectives that critically engage design as a political practice, examining how it participates in shaping relations of power, interdependence, and exclusion across different contexts.
The series foregrounds design's political and critical role in challenging conditions of belonging and marginality, instead of understanding it as a neutral or solution-oriented discipline. From the interrogation of anthropocentrism and species-based hierarchies, to participatory practices in contexts of institutional constraint such as prison, to the production of belonging and care across human and non-human relations, the lectures explore how design both reproduces and challenges dominant structures of power and legitimacy.
Drawing on decolonial, feminist, intersectional, and critical design perspectives, the series addresses interdependence as an asymmetrical field in which relations are negotiated. Across the contributions, particular attention is given to how exclusions are produced, normalized, and often rendered invisible within spatial, social, and institutional systems.
By situating design within broader political, historical, and epistemic frameworks, the series invites a shift toward more reflexive and responsible practices, capable of confronting their own implications in shaping conditions of coexistence.

Conference texts

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Imagination Talks: Design as a Political Practice