Design Activism for Queer Futures

Open Design, Co-Design and Critical Pedagogies for Participatory Processes of Social Innovation and Cultural Transformation

Abstract

This contribution explores the role of design — in particular of communication design — as a political practice capable of generating queer cultural infrastructures through open, participatory and situated methodologies. In a context in which communication produces and regulates public imaginaries, the research investigates how open design and queer-informed perspectives can overcome representational logics and transform design into a device of social activation. The theoretical framework interweaves queer theory, open design and critical pedagogies, highlighting the potential of design as a process of world-building and as an educational practice oriented towards empowerment and the co-production of knowledge. The adopted methodology is grounded in immersive co-design, understood as a recursive and community-based process through which solutions, narratives and adaptable resources emerge. Two project ideas — Queer Generative Futures and Queering Learning — demonstrate how such principles can be translated into scalable and exportable operational models.