Creators and Guests

Artist, film maker. Researcher, Situated Art and Design Group, Caradt (Centre for Applied Research in Art, Design, and Technology). Tutor, Situated Design MA, Master Institute of Visual Cultures, St Joost School of Art and Design.

I am an architect and lecturer in architecture. As an educator, I explore the role of narrative and empathetic engagement in design, using science fiction literature to provide a critical point of reflection on cities we currently inhabit as well as the future worlds we may be constructing. As a researcher, I examine the way in which the fictional worlds we construct influence and reflect the world we inhabit, writing about utopian thought and the imaginary in architecture through science fiction literature and film. As an architect, I specialise in higher and further education design, with a focus on client consultation, brief development and student engagement. I have a passionate interest in education building design, with a strong belief in the importance of wider consultation and narrative communication, to create spaces which can engage and inspire all users of the built environment.

I am an Amsterdam based designer and researcher. My focus is on teaching and lecturing, while developing self-initiated projects in design research, exploring hybrid modes of practice between design, theory and the political. I value research as a way of inhabiting practice and taking on a critical approach. An attentive merging of art and theory has been a core aspect in my work, both in education and artistic research. Current research interests and areas of work include ecologies of communication, politics of communication, noise, participatory methods, emerging modes of practice, socially responsible design, practice based research, decolonising practices, spectrality studies. In my PhD (Goldsmiths, University of London, 2016) I advanced the concept of Miscommunication to challenge the notion of ‘good communication’ as an objective of the field of communication design—communication is often failing to reach its intended audiences or outcomes. I expanded on miscommunication as concept and practice to demonstrate how social and cultural exchanges that produce error or misunderstanding can be provocative sites for developing new modes of communication design. Miscommunication is often regarded as the failure of communication. In other words, miscommunication interrupts, slows down, or creates misunderstandings. However, I showed that when miscommunication is acknowledged in design practices it can generate more situated contributions for designers, while creating the opportunity to explore exchanges that can foster new speculative design practices and new political formations. I looked at communication in its transformative capacity, understood as a key element in socially and politically engaged modes of practice. In this way, I contextualised and analysed communication design within social and participatory design, going beyond the literature in design, drawing on a diverse body of literature at the intersection of design, participation, the formation of publics and science and technology studies, to push the boundaries of Communication Design to rethink its role in creating political events and propose new imaginaries for participatory design practices. These were offered through a set of practical propositions for creating ‘political scenes,’ developed through three ‘figures of miscommunication,’ that of the parasite, the idiot and the diplomat, borrowing from the theoretical framework of Michel Serres and Isabelle Stengers, exploring noise that interferes with good communication, impasses to communication through apparent moments of nonsense and forms of exchange that take on misunderstanding. Articulating miscommunication through examples of works in art and design, participatory processes aiming at social change and, reflection on a set of exploratory practices in Lisbon, Maputo, London and Amsterdam. My background is in communication design, type design and typography (Type&Media, KABK). As a communication designer I have worked in a variety of settings and places, and also maintained a regular activity as a teacher in higher education. I have extensive experience with working community-based projects, and collaborating with others such as the collective Cascoland or Theatre of the Oppressed. I have initiated many workshops in design thinking and practice.

Cesar Jung-Harada is a French-Japanese designer, environmentalist, educator, and entrepreneur, passionate about ocean technology, impact innovation, and education based in Singapore. Cesar is an Associate Professor of Design at the Singapore Institute of Technology. Cesar is currently a candidate Ph.D. in Design and Ocean Innovation at the CNAM (France), Former Director of MakerBay LTD (Hong Kong Makerspace), Scoutbots LTD (Ocean Robotic Startup). Cesar serves as a Trustee of the board of HBKU (Qatar), the Wyng Foundation (Hong Kong), and regularly delivers workshops and keynotes at international conferences in places such as the UN, Harvard or TED. See his projects at https://cesarharada.com.

Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian PhD is an award-winning designer of experiences with over a decade of working to advocate for plurality and to manufacture impossible productions and complex events and projects. who creates multidimensional experiential projects at the intersection of film, science, tech, theatre, politics,music and design. Wired awarded her their inaugural Innovation Fellowship, and Icon magazine recognized Dr Ben Hayoun as one of the top 50 designers “shaping the future”. Nelly was distinguished as the first on the list of the top 50 women on the speaker circuit by The Drum Magazine; while Creative Review named her one of the Creative Leaders 50, selecting 50 creatives they felt were “driving change, not just within their organisation but in the world at large”, Dezeen selected her as one of the ’50 inspirational women in architecture and design’ and most recently she won a Karman fellowship for her unique global cultural achievements to astronautics and space exploration. Nelly is the founder of both NASA’s International Space Orchestra , the tuition-free charity University of the Underground and design agency Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios. Her large scale projects have included collaborations with political activists like Noam Chomsky, Pussy Riot, or Arjun Appadurai and artists like Massive Attack and Kid Cudi, The Avalanches to name a few. She is known for challenging institutions from within through events, and she has done so at the United Nations, NASA or the International Astronautical Federation where she is Vice Chair of the Technical Committee on the Cultural Utilization of Space (ITACCUS), a member of the IAF Space Education and Outreach Committee (SEOC), and a member of the IAA (International Academy of Astronautics) Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) permanent committee.Nelly is the author and director of three feature-length documentaries (ie: The International Space Orchestra, 2013; Disaster Playground, 2015 and I am (not) a monster, 2019). In 2020, Nelly became a grantee of Sundance Institute with her new documentary- currently in production- called RED MOON. Through role-play, magic, and doppelgängers, the film RED MOON offers an experimental vision and template for future diasporas beyond Earth. Set in Algeria, Armenia and France, the film asks How will human inhabitants of the moon understand origin, borders and nations? For this film, Nelly investigates her family origins in Algeria and Armenia- which led to the start of her radio show on underground radio -on Worldwide FM- the Nelly Boum Show. In 2016, she was awarded with Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London Teaching award. When she is not making films, Nelly is a keynote speaker and has spoken worldwide about the value of experiential design practices in the context of nightlife, outreach, community and education. Her design work has been exhibited at the National Museum of China, MOMA, V&A, the MET and other leading design institutions. Nelly is also an amateur boxer who trains at the legendary Gleason’s Gym in NYC in the fighting crew of trainer Hector Roca. She has two doppelgangers who work with her to appear at multiple places at the same time, a Barbie doll and a Lego made of herself. Nelly received a BA in Textile Design at ENSAAMA Olivier De Serres (college of applied arts) in Paris, a MA with distinction from the Royal College of Arts in Design Interactions, she holds a PhD in Geography (Human geography and political philosophy) from Royal Holloway, University of London. Most recently, she led a free nationwide festival across the United Kingdom called ‘Tour de Moon’ in collaboration with more than a thousand youths and nighttime workers. Tour de Moon is composed of immersive experiences and live events developed in collaboration with our “universal satellite”: the Moon, seen as a character, a landscape and a prompt for radical imagination. Nelly is passionately committed to supporting the creation of organized communities in building new beginnings. To this end, she actively works to build platforms for others to experience plurality, decolonial practices, social and racial justice, solidarity and equity, so that History does not repeat itself on earth and beyond, to this end she is a senior fellow of the Hannah Arendt Center, which supports humanities and human rights across the globe.