The Institute adopts the great leftist traditions of horizontal, democratic decision-making and organizing, bringing it to the world of design. The core of our approach is a commitment to co-creating with marginalized communities and as marginalized people. The Institute is syndicalist, volunteer-based, cooperative, and nonhierarchical. The Institute works with other organizers, using strategic design thinking, investigative research, and community engagement to implement design interventions that lead to lasting, palpable change.
The Design Activist Institute is meeting regularly through Summer 2020 to collaborate virtually on the following dates while socially distancing. Click “Join Us” above to get access to meeting links.
This year, we are remotely collaborating on a co-creative, community-led project to “design a better world” so that we might avoid a return to the status quo. This project aims to visualize a radically better future, offer resources that paint a path forward today, while providing knowledge-sharing and transparency around design and community organizing. We are meeting virtually every other Thursday evening at 6pm to collaborate on the following dates:
Note: due to public health concerns, the Studio Series has been postponed until further notice. Follow the link below to receive updates when the Studio Series is rescheduled.
This year, the Institute aims to radicalize access to design and design education through the practice of community and activist design, discovering new methods of teaching, learning, and self-improvement through designing for justice, liberation, and resistance.
The Studio Series is a free, interdisciplinary, co-creative, and autonomous laboratory. The community nominates local issues, and participants — those without formal experience in design as well as professional designers — vote to drive group-determination.
Inspired by the revolutionary collective models of the Medu Art Ensemble, Taller de Gráfica Popular, Atelier Populaire, Luther Blissett, Guerrilla Girls, the White Rose, and Gran Fury, the Institute strives for cooperative design solutions both self-initiated and along with other activists. These groups were born out of specific flashpoints in history, creating art that signaled defiance against tyrannical rule, oppression, and autocracy. They each manifested the spirit of critical moments, and left behind a lasting visual legacy. The impact of these forebears was deep and meaningful, and the Institute aspires to uphold their ethics.
The Institute developed a framework that combines collective design with community organizing as the highest expression of activism, named “Commons-Centered Design.” This report, titled “The Ballot and the Pixel,” explores how to improve human-centered design frameworks with organizing and activist principles, outlines how to organize for direct democracy, and demonstrates how designers fit into mass movements to build collective power for the masses.
The Design Activist Institute brings multi-disciplinary designers together with writers, researchers, engineers, activists, students, and other experts, and are always looking to collaborate. Come link up with other individuals who are aiming to make a difference in the world through creative means by clicking the "Join Us" link above. If you’re interested in getting involved, are a community organizer who wants to collaborate, want to attend a workshop, or are looking for more information about our projects, feel free to email us at the link below.
The Institute is currently working on the Studio Series, the How Might Philly? project, a mobile design resistance library, a guerrilla exhibition of posters, guidebooks, a series of video shorts, and collaborative social community-building resources. The group organizes for environmental justice, refugee and immigrant rights, the rights of queer and trans people, restorative justice, feminism, racial justice, equality, fair and equal housing rights, universal health and wellbeing, workers’ rights, and against any form of hate. Some completed projects include zines and publications, various events and workshops, interactive pop-ups, a migrant rights design system, and a policy platform for a local candidate.
The Design Activist Institute maintains an antifascist design reading list resource for designers who might be interested in antifascism or antifascists who might be interested in design.
“Fighting Fascism: How to Struggle and How to Win;” Clara Zetkin
“Ecofascism Revisited;” Janet Biehl and Peter Staudemaier
“The Ku Klux Klan in the City: 1915-1930;” Kenneth T. Jackson
“Growing Without Schooling;” John Holt
“The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained;” edited by Will Buckingham, DK Publishing
“Expect Resistance” and “Days of War, Nights of Love” CrimethInc.
“Never Again: Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League 1976–1982;” David Renton
“40 Ways to Fight Nazis: Forty Community-Based Actions You Can Take to Resist White Nationalist Organizing,” Spencer Sunshine
For visual material moreso than antifascist commentary:
“Iron Fist: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State;” Stephen Heller
“The Education of a Graphic Designer, 3rd edition;” Stephen Heller et al
The Design Activist Institute spent the majority of the 2019 workshops organizing to increase access to the field of design and design education through the work of resistance, which coalesced into the Studio Series. Organizers with the Institute also participated in panels at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and with the design community organization We the Women, facilitated workshops to train docents and staff at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in preparation for their "Design for Different Futures" exhibition and at the Tandem Conference. The Institute also launched an Antifascist Design Club to engage in countering white supremacy and terrorism with direct action, research, and design. Get in touch if you are interested in the screenplay the Institute completed as work for this project. Due to public health concerns, the Studio Series has been postponed, but visit the event page for more details for when it is rescheduled.
Participants in this workshop series collaboratively designed a guide for utopia using consensus-building, systems design, design thinking, principles of social justice, and democratic organizing tactics. Participants worked cooperatively, with group ideation influencing collective direction. The final project results of the workshops were presented at a DesignPhiladelphia event on October 4 at Elixr Coffee. View or contribute to the “How Might Philly?” project.
For the second year in a row, the Design Activist Institute conducted a series of biweekly summer workshops and events at the University of the Arts in Center City, Philadelphia. The series was open to the community and included a panel discussion with community activists, tutorials on open source design tools and information design techniques, explorations of cryptography and cybersecurity, a collaborative, guerrilla poster series, and more. The summer sessions began on June 1 and were held every other Thursday evening through the end of August. The Institute also took part in local protests and field trips to destinations like the North Philly Peace Park, as well as a workshop in conjunction with Tell Me a Story, "Art and Storytelling for a Better World" at DesignPhiladelphia in the fall.
The first Design Activist Institute workshop took place on June 2, 2016, with eleven participants. The theme for the 2016 series was determined in advance of the workshops, with flexibility in place in the instance that participants voted to focus on a different subject matter. A presentation was given on climate justice, covering historical resistance art movements, then-current background information expressing the urgency of the climate crisis, Philadelphia’s sensitivity to various aspects of climate change, information on various feedback loops, examples of local climate injustice, comparisons between individual human impacts and industrial / systemic impacts, ending with three different project concepts: sustainable food production, composting, and removal of heavy metals from the waste stream. As the workshops continued, the group coalesced around a few concepts and areas of focus, conducted research, and proceeded to get to work.
If you're interested in learning any more about any of the Institute's research, workshop subjects, or ongoing projects, contact designactivist@protonmail.com.
