I'm a researcher and artist born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I hold a PhD in Design Research from the University of the Arts Berlin, and an MA from the University of the Arts Bremen. My work engages with material and visual culture through the lenses of decolonial and queer theories. I'm particularly interested in technologies and practices of birth control and their entanglements with colonial hierarchies of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and nationality; my current artistic research project, titled “A Topography of Excesses,” examines the transmission of indigenous and folk knowledges about herbal birth control in Brazil as a decolonising practice of radical care.
This forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, investigating the ways in which it shapes the con... more This forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, investigating the ways in which it shapes the contemporary world. We will look at how colonial structures of power shape the development of new technologies, as well as emergent manifestations of anti-colonial resistance. --- Luiza Prado de Oliveira Martins, Editor
This forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, investigating the ways in which it shapes the con... more This forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, investigating the ways in which it shapes the contemporary world. We will look at how colonial structures of power shape the development of new technologies, as well as emergent manifestations of anti-colonial resistance.--- Luiza Prado de Oliveira Martins, Editor
This forum is dedicated to exploring the notion of meaningfulness in design processes, taking the... more This forum is dedicated to exploring the notion of meaningfulness in design processes, taking the perspectives of community groups, nongovernmental organizations, and those who are marginalized in society as starting points. Authors will reflect conceptually and methodologically on practical engagements. --- Rosanna Bellini and Angelika Strohmayer, Editors
This chapter brings three different perspectives on decolonising design education into dialogue v... more This chapter brings three different perspectives on decolonising design education into dialogue via the method of a roundtable discussion. The roundtable format was chosen as a means to reflect the differing and respective loci of enunciation of each author within the dialogue, an approach that is itself the expression of the pedagogical philosophy of the Decolonising Design group. Our intention is to complement, contrast, challenge, and reflect on one another’s experiences while at the same time respecting their places of origin and thought. We begin with an argument for questioning “design” and “design education” as an expression of capitalist-imperial strategy. For decolonial theorist Ramón Grosfoguel, the predominance of canonical, Eurocentric knowledge within the curriculums of Westernised universities informs a relationship between the increasing neoliberalisation of the University as an institution, as well as the formation of students who are more concerned with the needs and desires of employment markets rather than with critical thinking. The discussion moves on to consider a possible re-contextualisation of the concept of design education in the Global South, albeit borrowed from the West, as a site of transformation, positioned and shaped in distinct ways by the coloniality of power. We conclude by articulating these situated tactics as contributing to collective recodings of the university as a site of decolonising transformation and encourage others to find their own tactics, from where they stand.
This intra-view follows a round-table discussion that took place during the New Materialist Infor... more This intra-view follows a round-table discussion that took place during the New Materialist Informatics conference on 25 March 2021. The discussants-Indigenous researcher and game designer Outi Laiti, artists and researchers Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Femke Snelting and Caroline Ward-start with their own artistic, academic, and creative practices and discuss how these practices relate to otherwise-worldings in computing that engage materialist, anti-racist, decolonial, Indigenous, and trans*feminist thinking and doing. This discussion, facilitated by artist Ren Loren Britton and researcher Goda Klumbytė, brings up questions of collaboration and infrastructures needed to support otherwise practices in computing and design.
Though critical and speculative design have been increasingly relevant in discussing the social a... more Though critical and speculative design have been increasingly relevant in discussing the social and cultural role of design, there has been a distinct lack of both theory and praxis aimed at questioning gender oppression. Departing from an intersectional feminist analysis of the influences and origins of speculative and critical design, this essay questions the underlying privilege that has been hindering the discussion on gender within the discipline and its role in propagating oppression; it then goes on to propose the concept of a “feminist speculative design” as an approach aimed at questioning the complex relationships between gender, technology and social and cultural oppression.
Much of the academic and professional discourse within the design disciplines over the last centu... more Much of the academic and professional discourse within the design disciplines over the last century has been bereft of a critical reflection on the politics of design practice, and on the politics of the artifacts, systems and practices that designerly activity produces. Our premise is that— notwithstanding important and valued exceptions—design theory, practice, and pedagogy as a whole are not geared towards delivering the kinds of knowledge and understanding that are adequate to addressing longstanding systemic issues of power. These issues are products of modernity and its ideologies, regimes, and institutions reiterating, producing and exerting continued colonial power upon the lives of oppressed, marginalised, and subaltern peoples in both the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world. This planet, shared and co- inhabited by a plurality of peoples, each inhabiting different worlds, each orienting themselves within and towards their environments in different ways, and with different c...
XRDS Crossroads The ACM Magazine for Students, Jun 13, 2016
How can the ideas of timelessness and anachronism contribute to the decolonization of design prac... more How can the ideas of timelessness and anachronism contribute to the decolonization of design practices in Latin America?
Part 1: In this conversation we will address the political complexities of design as both a produ... more Part 1: In this conversation we will address the political complexities of design as both a product and a producer of colonialism and coloniality. Yet, to understand these complexities beyond the act of designing, we will discuss coloniality through issues such as settler colonialism, modernity and capi - talism, police states, identity repro - duction, the problem of diversity, and humanitarian imperialism. Seeking inspiration from anti- and decolonial struggles, whether historical or contemporary, this conversation aims to shed light on the greater matrix of power in which design resides and operates. Part 2: In this session we will expand discussions emerging out of the session 2P, this time through the lenses of design and materiality. Inquiring and propelling a more informed discussion on the agency of design and design research within coloniality through various examples, we will sketch out possible political and radical decolonial redirections for design research and practice.
Extra-curricular is a reader of collected texts about self-organized learning, experiments, and a... more Extra-curricular is a reader of collected texts about self-organized learning, experiments, and alternatives in art and design education. Occurring both within and separate from existing institutions, these new forms of learning and organization question how learning takes place, for whom, and the ideologies inherent in existing models, among many other things. An (admittedly) incomplete inventory, this book aims to serve as a starting point for further discussion and experimentation.
After centuries of subaltern and decades of transdisciplinary gestation, decolonial thinking has ... more After centuries of subaltern and decades of transdisciplinary gestation, decolonial thinking has finally been incorporated into studies of materiality and – though belatedly – cohered as a question ...
One of the core characteristics of speculative design projects is the way they can be easily conf... more One of the core characteristics of speculative design projects is the way they can be easily confused with reality. By maintaining a close connection with the mundane, these fictions often pose provocative questions shaped as uncanny scenarios that weave rather dystopian encounters with possible futures. However, where does one trace the line between propaganda hoaxes and critical design depictions? Using the story of alleged ‘time traveller’ John Titor – one of the most well-known Internet hoaxes so far – as a point of reference, this article will discuss the civil role and the cultural resonance of speculative design fictions, as well as the responsibility of the designer in either questioning or reaffirming society’s political, social and economic agendas.
This forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, investigating the ways in which it shapes the con... more This forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, investigating the ways in which it shapes the contemporary world. We will look at how colonial structures of power shape the development of new technologies, as well as emergent manifestations of anti-colonial resistance. --- Luiza Prado de Oliveira Martins, Editor
This forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, investigating the ways in which it shapes the con... more This forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, investigating the ways in which it shapes the contemporary world. We will look at how colonial structures of power shape the development of new technologies, as well as emergent manifestations of anti-colonial resistance.--- Luiza Prado de Oliveira Martins, Editor
This forum is dedicated to exploring the notion of meaningfulness in design processes, taking the... more This forum is dedicated to exploring the notion of meaningfulness in design processes, taking the perspectives of community groups, nongovernmental organizations, and those who are marginalized in society as starting points. Authors will reflect conceptually and methodologically on practical engagements. --- Rosanna Bellini and Angelika Strohmayer, Editors
This chapter brings three different perspectives on decolonising design education into dialogue v... more This chapter brings three different perspectives on decolonising design education into dialogue via the method of a roundtable discussion. The roundtable format was chosen as a means to reflect the differing and respective loci of enunciation of each author within the dialogue, an approach that is itself the expression of the pedagogical philosophy of the Decolonising Design group. Our intention is to complement, contrast, challenge, and reflect on one another’s experiences while at the same time respecting their places of origin and thought. We begin with an argument for questioning “design” and “design education” as an expression of capitalist-imperial strategy. For decolonial theorist Ramón Grosfoguel, the predominance of canonical, Eurocentric knowledge within the curriculums of Westernised universities informs a relationship between the increasing neoliberalisation of the University as an institution, as well as the formation of students who are more concerned with the needs and desires of employment markets rather than with critical thinking. The discussion moves on to consider a possible re-contextualisation of the concept of design education in the Global South, albeit borrowed from the West, as a site of transformation, positioned and shaped in distinct ways by the coloniality of power. We conclude by articulating these situated tactics as contributing to collective recodings of the university as a site of decolonising transformation and encourage others to find their own tactics, from where they stand.
This intra-view follows a round-table discussion that took place during the New Materialist Infor... more This intra-view follows a round-table discussion that took place during the New Materialist Informatics conference on 25 March 2021. The discussants-Indigenous researcher and game designer Outi Laiti, artists and researchers Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Femke Snelting and Caroline Ward-start with their own artistic, academic, and creative practices and discuss how these practices relate to otherwise-worldings in computing that engage materialist, anti-racist, decolonial, Indigenous, and trans*feminist thinking and doing. This discussion, facilitated by artist Ren Loren Britton and researcher Goda Klumbytė, brings up questions of collaboration and infrastructures needed to support otherwise practices in computing and design.
Though critical and speculative design have been increasingly relevant in discussing the social a... more Though critical and speculative design have been increasingly relevant in discussing the social and cultural role of design, there has been a distinct lack of both theory and praxis aimed at questioning gender oppression. Departing from an intersectional feminist analysis of the influences and origins of speculative and critical design, this essay questions the underlying privilege that has been hindering the discussion on gender within the discipline and its role in propagating oppression; it then goes on to propose the concept of a “feminist speculative design” as an approach aimed at questioning the complex relationships between gender, technology and social and cultural oppression.
Much of the academic and professional discourse within the design disciplines over the last centu... more Much of the academic and professional discourse within the design disciplines over the last century has been bereft of a critical reflection on the politics of design practice, and on the politics of the artifacts, systems and practices that designerly activity produces. Our premise is that— notwithstanding important and valued exceptions—design theory, practice, and pedagogy as a whole are not geared towards delivering the kinds of knowledge and understanding that are adequate to addressing longstanding systemic issues of power. These issues are products of modernity and its ideologies, regimes, and institutions reiterating, producing and exerting continued colonial power upon the lives of oppressed, marginalised, and subaltern peoples in both the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ world. This planet, shared and co- inhabited by a plurality of peoples, each inhabiting different worlds, each orienting themselves within and towards their environments in different ways, and with different c...
XRDS Crossroads The ACM Magazine for Students, Jun 13, 2016
How can the ideas of timelessness and anachronism contribute to the decolonization of design prac... more How can the ideas of timelessness and anachronism contribute to the decolonization of design practices in Latin America?
Part 1: In this conversation we will address the political complexities of design as both a produ... more Part 1: In this conversation we will address the political complexities of design as both a product and a producer of colonialism and coloniality. Yet, to understand these complexities beyond the act of designing, we will discuss coloniality through issues such as settler colonialism, modernity and capi - talism, police states, identity repro - duction, the problem of diversity, and humanitarian imperialism. Seeking inspiration from anti- and decolonial struggles, whether historical or contemporary, this conversation aims to shed light on the greater matrix of power in which design resides and operates. Part 2: In this session we will expand discussions emerging out of the session 2P, this time through the lenses of design and materiality. Inquiring and propelling a more informed discussion on the agency of design and design research within coloniality through various examples, we will sketch out possible political and radical decolonial redirections for design research and practice.
Extra-curricular is a reader of collected texts about self-organized learning, experiments, and a... more Extra-curricular is a reader of collected texts about self-organized learning, experiments, and alternatives in art and design education. Occurring both within and separate from existing institutions, these new forms of learning and organization question how learning takes place, for whom, and the ideologies inherent in existing models, among many other things. An (admittedly) incomplete inventory, this book aims to serve as a starting point for further discussion and experimentation.
After centuries of subaltern and decades of transdisciplinary gestation, decolonial thinking has ... more After centuries of subaltern and decades of transdisciplinary gestation, decolonial thinking has finally been incorporated into studies of materiality and – though belatedly – cohered as a question ...
One of the core characteristics of speculative design projects is the way they can be easily conf... more One of the core characteristics of speculative design projects is the way they can be easily confused with reality. By maintaining a close connection with the mundane, these fictions often pose provocative questions shaped as uncanny scenarios that weave rather dystopian encounters with possible futures. However, where does one trace the line between propaganda hoaxes and critical design depictions? Using the story of alleged ‘time traveller’ John Titor – one of the most well-known Internet hoaxes so far – as a point of reference, this article will discuss the civil role and the cultural resonance of speculative design fictions, as well as the responsibility of the designer in either questioning or reaffirming society’s political, social and economic agendas.
Class assignment, as printed in the book “Taking a Line for a Walk: Assignments in Design Educati... more Class assignment, as printed in the book “Taking a Line for a Walk: Assignments in Design Education”, edited by Nina Paim and Emilia Bergmark. Published by Spector Books.
Chapter published in the book "The Responsible Object", edited by Marjanne Van Helvert and publis... more Chapter published in the book "The Responsible Object", edited by Marjanne Van Helvert and published by Valiz.
Speculative design is going through a troubled adolescence. Roughly fifteen years after interacti... more Speculative design is going through a troubled adolescence. Roughly fifteen years after interaction design duo Dunne and Raby first started talking about “critical design”, the field seems to have grown up a bit too spoiled and self-centered. Being a fairly young approach to product and interaction design, it seems to have reached a tipping point of confusion, rebellion, contrasting opinions and confrontations. Presently, from practitioners to theorists there seems to be little consensus about what the field is able to offer – and whether it is of any use at all. In this article we hope to pinpoint some reasons why this is so, while at the same time offering not possible, plausible or probable but preferable developments for the field.
Speculative and Critical Design projects and publications constantly show a general disregard for... more Speculative and Critical Design projects and publications constantly show a general disregard for issues of race, class and gender privilege; the field remains largely blind to these issues, letting plenty of “narrow assumptions” sneak in. These will only continue to reinforce the status quo of colonialism and imperialism rather than effectively challenging it. To try to make things a bit easier, the following essay is a very simple and straightforward “Cheat Sheet” for Speculative and/or Critical Designers to consult when developing new projects. Following these simple steps may positively contribute to not only Speculative and Critical Design projects becoming more powerful in their line of questioning, but also avoiding the mishaps it sets itself up so boldly to criticise.
(Opening Speech of the Intersectional Perspectives on Design, Politics and Power Symposium, Malmö... more (Opening Speech of the Intersectional Perspectives on Design, Politics and Power Symposium, Malmö University, Sweden, 14-15 November 2016)
Today the topic of design and politics is not unfamiliar to designers or those in politics. Yet d... more Today the topic of design and politics is not unfamiliar to designers or those in politics. Yet despite designers’ engagement in community-based activities, design discourse has not been able yet to produce a useful lexicon of concepts that could offer possibilities of acting politically through design. The reason behind this could be seen in various complexities and difficulties involved in such possible discourses. One way to approach such difficulties is through an intra-disciplinary engagement not with the fields of design and politics but with the effects that design and politics produce through a series of internal, mutual co-relations. These effects are manifested and produced not merely through legislative and institutional practices, but through designed artefacts, spaces, sites and technologies. Ranging from gentrified public squares to high security checkpoints, from precarious production lines to everyday gendered goods, such material co-enactments of design and politics regulate and manipulate people’s bodies, abilities, movements, inhabitations and life conditions in various ways, based on their race, ethnicity, social and legal status, gender and sexuality. From this perspective, the concept of intersectionality can be a useful frame and method to interrogate how design and politics co-shape each other through power relations across race, gender and class, as well as other identity attributions. Intersectionality teaches us that politics cannot be only understood through rigid power categories but through a matrix of forces and relations that produce different effects in different sites and moments, with different bodies and positions. Scholars in postcolonial feminism have discussed the concept of intersectionality widely and have used it as a method to interrogate various sites and spaces of power. This symposium is an attempt to initiate a space of thinking for discussing the concept of intersectionality from the agency of design and designing in particular and materiality in general. It seems that intersectionality could be a useful method for understanding the politics and political agency of design:
- How do design and designing participate and reinforce power structures in an intersectional way through and across race, gender and class? - How can design and designing offer novel ways to understand the ways in which power operates in intersectional ways? - And possibly how can design and designing propose ways of intervening in such complex and intersectional power relations?
+ This is the full program embedding the links to full papers +
This roundtable was conducted by the eight founding members of Decolonising Design Group in Octob... more This roundtable was conducted by the eight founding members of Decolonising Design Group in October 2017, using an online messaging platform. Each member approached design and decoloniality from different yet interrelating viewpoints, by threading their individual arguments with the preceding ones. The piece thus offers and travels through a variety of subject matter including politics of design, artificiality, modernity, Eurocentrism, capitalism, Indigenous Knowledge, pluriversality, continental philosophy, pedagogy, materiality, mobility, language, gender oppression, sexuality, and intersectionality.
This dissertation offers a critical engagement with design’s implication in the ontological const... more This dissertation offers a critical engagement with design’s implication in the ontological constitution of gendered, racialized, subjugated bodies. To do so, it starts from a broad understanding of design as an activity that articulates modes of being in the world — and that, in so doing, also shapes itself. This approach is grounded on an interrogation of the political motives that permeate and inform design processes; I take particular interest in how these have been manifested throughout the history of birth control technology.
Starting from this background, I outline and propose the concept of technoecologies of birth control — that is, spaces that emerge through the performances of co-constitutive material-semiotic actors, for the purposes of birth control. Throughout this dissertation, I identify two fundamental sets of actors operating within the technoecological space: bodies and things. The co-constitution of these actors is realized across historically, geopolitically, socioculturally, technoscientifically located performances; as such, technoecological actors are approached as relational, contextual and mutually structuring entities.
This conceptualization of technoecologies of birth control is informed by feminist and decolonial theories, and posits that these spaces are crucial for the establishment and sedimentation of biopolitical regimes of domination. Design is thoroughly implicated in the emergence of technoecologies of birth control, as it holds a crucial role in the management and regulation of bodies characteristic of biopolitical regimes of domination. In other words, design inscribes ontological meaning onto some bodies in detriment of others; it is with the sedimentation of these conditions that bodies become coded as ‘naturally’ or ‘fundamentally’ different. The constitution of difference amongst material-semiotic actors in technoecologies of birth control is thus articulated by design; in other words, it is the result of a planned, deliberate inscription of ontological meaning.
My interrogation of design’s role in the constitution of subjugated bodies occurs within the scope of these technoecologies. Starting from this framework, I discuss the insights offered by a series of experiments (‘Yarn Sessions’ and 'Oniria') conceived as both explorations of the technoecological space, and speculations on the instability of the social constitution of bodies by design. My theorization of technoecologies of birth control happens, thus, through a process of research through design — that is, a process in which theory and practice are deployed as mutually informing forces in design research. Through the analysis of these design experiments, I propose three fundamental aspects of the performances of material-semiotic actors within technoecologies of birth control: relativity, opacity, and duplicity.
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Papers by Luiza Prado de O. Martins
One way to approach such difficulties is through an intra-disciplinary engagement not with the fields of design and politics but with the effects that design and politics produce through a series of internal, mutual co-relations. These effects are manifested and produced not merely through legislative and institutional practices, but through designed artefacts, spaces, sites and technologies. Ranging from gentrified public squares to high security checkpoints, from precarious production lines to everyday gendered goods, such material co-enactments of design and politics regulate and manipulate people’s bodies, abilities, movements, inhabitations and life conditions in various ways, based on their race, ethnicity, social and legal status, gender and sexuality. From this perspective, the concept of intersectionality can be a useful frame and method to interrogate how design and politics co-shape each other through power relations across race, gender and class, as well as other identity attributions. Intersectionality teaches us that politics cannot be only understood through rigid power categories but through a matrix of forces and relations that produce different effects in different sites and moments, with different bodies and positions. Scholars in postcolonial feminism have discussed the concept of intersectionality widely and have used it as a method to interrogate various sites and spaces of power.
This symposium is an attempt to initiate a space of thinking for discussing the concept of intersectionality from the agency of design and designing in particular and materiality in general. It seems that intersectionality could be a useful method for understanding the politics and political agency of design:
- How do design and designing participate and reinforce power structures in an intersectional way through and across race, gender and class?
- How can design and designing offer novel ways to understand the ways in which power operates in intersectional ways?
- And possibly how can design and designing propose ways of intervening in such complex and intersectional power relations?
+ This is the full program embedding the links to full papers +
Starting from this background, I outline and propose the concept of technoecologies of birth control — that is, spaces that emerge through the performances of co-constitutive material-semiotic actors, for the purposes of birth control. Throughout this dissertation, I identify two fundamental sets of actors operating within the technoecological space: bodies and things. The co-constitution of these actors is realized across historically, geopolitically, socioculturally, technoscientifically located performances; as such, technoecological actors are approached as relational, contextual and mutually structuring entities.
This conceptualization of technoecologies of birth control is informed by feminist and decolonial theories, and posits that these spaces are crucial for the establishment and sedimentation of biopolitical regimes of domination. Design is thoroughly implicated in the emergence of technoecologies of birth control, as it holds a crucial role in the management and regulation of bodies characteristic of biopolitical regimes of domination. In other words, design inscribes ontological meaning onto some bodies in detriment of others; it is with the sedimentation of these conditions that bodies become coded as ‘naturally’ or ‘fundamentally’ different. The constitution of difference amongst material-semiotic actors in technoecologies of birth control is thus articulated by design; in other words, it is the result of a planned, deliberate inscription of ontological meaning.
My interrogation of design’s role in the constitution of subjugated bodies occurs within the scope of these technoecologies. Starting from this framework, I discuss the insights offered by a series of experiments (‘Yarn Sessions’ and 'Oniria') conceived as both explorations of the technoecological space, and speculations on the instability of the social constitution of bodies by design. My theorization of technoecologies of birth control happens, thus, through a process of research through design — that is, a process in which theory and practice are deployed as mutually informing forces in design research. Through the analysis of these design experiments, I propose three fundamental aspects of the performances of material-semiotic actors within technoecologies of birth control: relativity, opacity, and duplicity.