Author: Can Yang

Aspect	Strategy
Consent	Written and verbal consent obtained in advance; withdrawal possible anytime
Anonymity	All student data anonymised; pseudonyms used if needed
Data Security	Stored on password-protected OneDrive; deleted after 12 months
Accessibility	Guided by UAL Disability Inclusion Toolkit; adjustments provided
Reciprocity	Students’ insights inform future practice; collaborative reflection encouraged
Risk Management	Site information, debriefing, and adherence to UAL safety procedures

1. Ethical Overview

This project adopts a reflexive and participatory ethical framework informed by decolonial and feminist research ethics. It recognises that research is not a neutral act but one shaped by power, positionality, and institutional structures. Ethical practice therefore extends beyond procedural compliance, encompassing relational accountability, respect, and care throughout the research process.

The Action Research Project (ARP) involves a single, structured archive visit undertaken with a small group of graphic design students. The visit will serve as both a pedagogical intervention and a site for data collection through anonymised student reflections and researcher field notes. The focus will be on understanding how engaging with a counter-archive can expand students’ critical awareness of knowledge systems in design.

2. Ethical Principles

The project will be guided by the following ethical principles:

• Informed Consent: Participants will receive clear written and verbal information outlining the purpose, scope, and voluntary nature of the research. Consent will be obtained prior to participation, with opportunities to withdraw at any stage without penalty.
• Anonymity and Confidentiality: All student reflections will be anonymised at the point of collection. No identifying details (e.g. names, student numbers) will appear in transcripts, reports, or final submissions. Pseudonyms may be used where necessary.
• Non-Extractive and Reciprocal Practice: The research aims to benefit participants through shared learning rather than extractive data collection. Findings will be discussed collectively, and students’ insights will inform future iterations of the project.
• Cultural Sensitivity and Positionality: The archive will be approached as a living cultural site rather than a neutral repository. Care will be taken to acknowledge the social, political, and historical contexts of materials encountered, avoiding appropriation or misrepresentation.
• Accessibility and Inclusion: The activity will be planned in accordance with the UAL Disability Inclusion Toolkit (Planning Academic Visits) to ensure equitable participation. Accessibility requirements (physical, sensory, or otherwise) will be discussed in advance, and reasonable adjustments made where needed.

3. Data Collection Method

The primary data collection method will be student reflections, written or verbal, collected shortly after the archive visit. These reflections will be guided by open prompts that invite students to describe:

• their experience of engaging with the archive,
• how it influenced their understanding of design knowledge,
• any challenges or insights that emerged.

The reflections will be submitted via a secure online platform or in anonymised handwritten form, depending on accessibility preferences. The researcher will also maintain field notes to capture contextual observations, group discussions, and emergent themes during the visit.

4. Data Protection and Storage

All collected data will be stored securely in accordance with UAL’s Research Ethics and Data Protection Policy and the UK GDPR.

• Digital files (student reflections, field notes, consent forms) will be stored on password-protected UAL OneDrive folders accessible only to the researcher.
• Physical materials (e.g. handwritten notes) will be kept in a locked cabinet and digitised where appropriate.
• Data will be retained for the duration of the PgCert programme and securely deleted within 12 months of project completion.
• No data will be shared with third parties or used for publication without explicit consent.

5. Risk and Mitigation

A brief risk assessment will be conducted prior to the archive visit, in consultation with the Programme Lead and institutional guidelines. Anticipated risks include accessibility barriers, emotional discomfort when engaging with sensitive archival content, or logistical challenges related to travel and participation. Mitigation measures will include:

• Providing detailed information about the archive’s environment and content in advance.
• Ensuring a supportive group dynamic, with space for debriefing and reflection.
• Adhering to institutional health and safety protocols for off-site visits.
• Offering alternative participation options (e.g. remote or asynchronous engagement) for students unable to attend in person.

6. Researcher Reflexivity

The researcher will maintain a reflective journal to document ethical decision-making, emotional responses, and emergent questions during the process. This reflexivity is central to the project’s decolonial orientation, ensuring ongoing awareness of power relations and positionality. Reflexive insights will inform both the analysis and the articulation of “next steps” in subsequent cycles of research.

The following section presents a refined version of the Ethical Action Plan, reformatted in accordance with the PgCert ethics form structure while maintaining the original project’s conceptual and methodological integrity.

1. What is the working title of your project? Also write a few sentences about the focus of your project.

Expanding Knowledge Systems in Graphic Design Pedagogy through Counter-Archival Encounters

This project investigates how engaging students with a single counter-archive can challenge the Eurocentric structures that dominate graphic design education. It explores how a visit to one local community or independent archive can introduce decolonial perspectives, expand students’ understanding of research, and prompt critical reflection on what counts as design knowledge. The research uses an Action Research framework to observe how direct engagement with non-institutional archives can reshape research habits and knowledge systems in design pedagogy.

2. What sources will you read or reference? Share 5 to 10.

• Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz, University of Chicago Press, 1995. 
• Didi-Huberman, Georges. Images in Spite of All: Four Photographs from Auschwitz. University of Chicago Press, 2012. 
• Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. 4th ed., Sage, 2016. 
• Gubrium, Aline, and Krista Harper. “Participatory Digital Research Ethics.” Participatory Visual and Digital Methods. Left Coast Press, 2013, pp. 45–69. 
• On the Notion of Counter Archive.” ICI Berlin Repository, ICI Berlin, 29 Apr. 2021, oa.ici-berlin.org/repository/doi/10.25620/e210429_07. Accessed 28 Sept. 2025. 
• Caswell, Michelle, and Marika Cifor. “From Human Rights to Feminist Ethics: Radical Empathy in the Archives.” Archivaria, vol. 81, 2016, pp. 23–43. 
• Ludovico, Alessandro. “Chapter 3: Activist Post-Truth Publishing.” Using Senses, Software, and Archives in the Twenty-First Century, Tactical Publishing, 2024, pp. 93–128. 
• Abdulla, Danah. Design Otherwise: A Decolonial Design Research PhD. 2019, www.dabdulla.com/Design-Otherwise-PhD-research. Accessed 28 Sept. 2025. 
• Escobar, Arturo. Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke UP, 2018.

3. What action(s) are you planning to take, and are they realistic in the time you have (Sept–Dec)?

The project will focus on a single, structured archive visit day with students, supported by guided reflection and analysis.
Planned actions include:

• Conducting a focused literature review on counter-archives and decolonial design pedagogy.
• Coordinating one field visit to a selected archive (the Living Refugee Archive and Asymmetry Art Foundation).
• Facilitating reflective exercises immediately following the visit, where students record their thoughts and responses to the materials encountered.
• Collecting anonymised student reflections and researcher field notes as the primary data set.
• Analysing this data to identify how the experience shaped students’ understanding of knowledge systems in design.

This narrower scope is achievable within the given timeframe (September–December 2025) while allowing depth of engagement and ethical clarity.

4. Who will be involved, and in what way?

(Note: if any participants are under 18, seek further advice from your tutor.)

• Graduate Diploma and MA Design Students (18+) – Primary participants who will take part in the archive visit and submit anonymised written or verbal reflections about their learning experience.
• Course Leader and Colleagues – Provide pedagogical guidance, support ethics procedures, and contribute to reflective discussions.
• Archivist or Community Partner – Offers contextual insight into the archive and its history; their contributions will be acknowledged respectfully and with consent.

All participants will be adults. The research will be participatory and non-extractive, ensuring that community partners’ intellectual and cultural labour is properly recognised.

5. What are the health & safety concerns, and how will you prepare for them?

Potential risks:

• Travel and navigation during the off-site visit.
• Accessibility barriers (physical access, environmental conditions).
• Emotional discomfort when engaging with sensitive or traumatic archival material (e.g. relating to migration, displacement, or colonial histories).

Preparation and mitigation:

• A risk assessment will be completed in line with UAL’s Health and Safety guidance before the visit.
• Accessibility needs will be reviewed in advance, following the UAL Disability Inclusion Toolkit (Planning Academic Visits) to ensure equitable participation.
• Students will receive a pre-visit briefing about site conditions, content sensitivity, and support resources.
• Debrief and group reflection sessions will follow the visit to support emotional wellbeing.

6. How will you manage and protect any physical and/or digital data you collect, including the data of people involved

BERA Guidelines 2024: Consent
BERA Guidelines 2024: Privacy & Data Storage

Data collected:

• Anonymised student reflections (written or audio).
• Researcher field notes from the archive visit.

Data protection measures:

• Informed consent obtained from all participants before data collection.
• All data anonymised at the point of transcription; pseudonyms used if needed.
• Digital data stored on password-protected UAL OneDrive folders accessible only to the researcher.
• Physical notes stored securely and destroyed after digitisation.
• Data retained for the duration of the PgCert and deleted within 12 months of project completion.
• Sensitive or personal information will not be shared outside the project without explicit permission.

7. How will you take ethics into account in your project for participants and/or yourself

BERA Guidelines 2024: Responsibilities to Participants
BERA Guidelines 2024: Responsibilities to Sponsors
BERA Guidelines 2024: Responsibilities for Wellbeing
(See also: “Emotionally Demanding Research” PDF on Moodle.)

Ethical practice will be embedded throughout the project, guided by decolonial, participatory, and feminist ethics frameworks:

• Informed Consent and Autonomy – Participants will receive clear information about the project aims and their right to withdraw at any time without consequence.
• Anonymity and Respect – Reflections will be anonymised; archivists and community contributors will be credited appropriately and only with consent.
• Wellbeing and Emotional Safety – The researcher will remain alert to the emotional demands of engaging with sensitive materials. Debriefing sessions, group reflections, and signposting to UAL wellbeing services will be provided as needed.
• Power Dynamics – As the researcher is also a lecturer, attention will be given to minimising power imbalance. Reflection activities will be framed as collaborative learning rather than assessment.
• Cultural Sensitivity and Reflexivity – Decolonial research requires self-awareness and care in handling cultural materials. The researcher will maintain a reflexive journal documenting positionality, ethical decisions, and emergent issues.

The project prioritises non-extractive and reciprocal research, ensuring that both students and community partners benefit from the shared learning process and that all engagements are grounded in respect and accountability.

The following Participant Information Sheet outlines the context, purpose, and ethical framework of the study, providing potential participants with a clear understanding of their involvement in the research.

The accompanying Participant Consent Form formalises voluntary participation, ensuring that contributors provide informed consent and understand how their data will be used, stored, and protected.

Situated Design: A Three-Session Workshop for Inclusive Curatorial Practice

Introduction

This reflective report critically explores the design and implementation of my teaching intervention titled Situated Design, a three-session workshop series aimed at embedding intersectional social justice through inclusive curatorial practices within the MA Graphic and Digital Communication (GDC) course at University of the Arts London (UAL). As an educator positioned at the intersection of diverse cultural backgrounds and academic disciplines, I was motivated to challenge dominant curatorial norms that often marginalize non-Western, non-dominant voices in place-making. My intention was to create a shared learning space where multiple student positionalities, including cultural, communicative, and accessibility differences, could be visibly and equitably integrated into the exhibition design process.

This intervention resonates with my academic practice in visual communication and design education, emphasizing participatory design and critical pedagogy as tools to deconstruct hegemonic narratives in design presentation. In reflecting on the intervention’s design, enactment, and outcomes, I draw on theories of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991), pedagogies of discomfort (Boler, 1999), and situated knowledges (Haraway, 1988) to critically assess the opportunities and challenges encountered. My overarching aim is to contribute to a more inclusive academic environment where diverse ways of knowing and presenting research are not only accepted but are central to our collective learning.

Context

The workshop was embedded within the preparatory phase for the MA GDC WIP (Work In Progress) Show, a high-stakes public exhibition where students present their research projects visually and spatially. The existing exhibition format at UAL traditionally prioritizes polished, final outcomes and often reflects dominant institutional aesthetics, which risks marginalizing students with diverse cultural backgrounds, research methodologies, or access needs. The cohort’s geographic, linguistic, and disciplinary diversity calls for a more flexible, dialogic approach to exhibition curation.

Situated in the GDC department, the intervention’s utility lies in transforming the exhibition from a static display into a dynamic, collective process of spatial and conceptual negotiation. By guiding students through infrastructural mapping, collaborative spatial prototyping, and live activation of their exhibition zones, the intervention foregrounds inclusion as a principle of spatial justice and collective authorship. It positions the exhibition as an ongoing, evolving site of intersectional engagement rather than a mere showcase.

Inclusive Learning: Theoretical Rationale

Inclusion within design education is imperative not only for social justice but also for the epistemological richness it brings to creative inquiry. Design has historically privileged Western, able-bodied, and commercial aesthetics (Flecker, 2020). This intervention aligns with inclusive pedagogies that resist homogenizing knowledge and instead cultivate plurality, autonomy, and participation (Sensoy and DiAngelo, 2017).

Intersectionality, as conceptualized by Crenshaw (1991), was a foundational lens, helping me understand how overlapping identities (cultural, linguistic, gendered, and neurodiverse) shape students’ experiences and modes of expression. Haraway’s (1988) concept of situated knowledges was pivotal in shifting away from universalist, “view-from-nowhere” curatorial narratives towards localized, relational epistemologies where knowledge is partial, contextual, and embodied.

Further, the intervention drew on participatory design principles, notably “designing with, not for” (Muller, 2003), to ensure students were co-authors rather than passive recipients of curatorial decisions. This approach also incorporates the idea of pedagogies of discomfort (Boler, 1999), recognizing that confronting inequities in authorship and representation can be challenging but necessary for transformative learning.

Reflection on the Intervention Design and Challenges

My thinking was shaped initially by student feedback from previous years, where many expressed feeling distanced from curatorial decisions and constrained by normative exhibition formats. Peer discussions within the department and informal consultations with technical staff helped refine the practical aspects, such as timelines and resource availability.

Key decisions included the three-part structure: mapping to foreground relational contexts, spatial prototyping to negotiate shared territories, and activation to embody dynamic participation. The emphasis on “living zones” aimed to subvert static displays and offer ways for ongoing visitor engagement.

However, challenges emerged in balancing structure and openness. There was a risk that too rigid a format could stifle individual creativity or enforce tokenistic inclusion. Conversely, too little structure might lead to fragmented or incoherent exhibitions. This tension mirrors wider debates in inclusive pedagogy around scaffolding versus autonomy (Florian and Black-Hawkins, 2011).

Further, there were potential risks around uneven participation, where dominant voices could overshadow others during group spatial negotiations. I anticipated that students with less confidence or different communication styles might struggle to assert their perspectives. Accessibility considerations, such as physical access to workshop spaces and alternative communication formats, were addressed but required ongoing attention.

Action and Implementation

The intervention was implemented over three sessions:

Session 1: Ground Work – Infrastructure and Mapping
Students collaboratively mapped their projects’ social, spatial, and relational contexts, building a visual diagram that made visible the situatedness of each research inquiry. Groups nominated coordinators to ensure ongoing communication.

Session 2: Spatial Production and Arrangement
Students created scaled models of their exhibition zones within a shared grid, negotiating curatorial decisions such as materials and spatial relationships that reflect individual and collective identities.

Session 3: Activation and Programming
The final session involved designing interactive elements—prompts, live programming, publishing—to animate the exhibition zones, inviting visitor participation and creating a living exhibition presence.

This approach foregrounded dialogue and co-creation, challenging hierarchical authorship. For my academic practice, it meant shifting from instructor-led directives to facilitative coaching, supporting students’ agency in shaping their own representation.

Evaluation of the Process

Through this process, I learned that inclusivity in curatorial practice requires ongoing negotiation and reflexivity. Success depends not only on well-designed structures but also on responsiveness to emergent group dynamics and individual needs.

To evaluate effectiveness, I propose multiple feedback mechanisms:

• Student reflections and surveys focusing on whether they felt their voice was authentically represented and if the process enabled equitable participation.
• Observational notes from workshop facilitators tracking engagement patterns and power dynamics.
• Exhibition visitor feedback to assess if the living zones fostered meaningful interaction and conveyed diverse perspectives.

The intervention revealed that while the theory of inclusion provides a vital framework, practical enactment demands adaptability and critical self-awareness to avoid reproducing exclusion.

Conclusion

This intervention deepened my awareness of the complexities involved in enacting intersectional social justice within design education. It reaffirmed my commitment to pedagogies that embrace discomfort, partiality, and multiplicity of voices, challenging dominant narratives in curatorial practice.

My positionality as an educator with a transnational background informed my sensitivity to cultural diversity and epistemic justice, yet also necessitated humility to listen and learn continuously from students’ lived experiences.

Moving forward, I aim to embed more participatory elements in my teaching while remaining vigilant about structural inequalities that can inadvertently resurface. Situated Design has been a meaningful step towards a more inclusive academic culture, underscoring the potential of collective authorship and spatial justice in shaping equitable design education.

References

Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell. (Original work published 1974)

Campos, M. R. (2017). Queering Architecture: Appropriating Space and Process (MA thesis). University of Cincinnati.

Crenshaw, K. (1991). ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.’ Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp. 1241-1299.

Florian, L. and Black-Hawkins, K. (2011). ‘Exploring Inclusive Pedagogy.’ British Educational Research Journal, 37(5), pp. 813–828.

Flesler, G., Neidhardt, A. and Ober, M. (2025). ‘A Conversation on the Discomfort of Feminist Design Pedagogy.’ In Mareis, C., Paim, N. et al. (eds.) Design Struggles: Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies and Perspectives. Amsterdam: Valiz, pp. 205–225.

Haraway, D. J. (1988). ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.’ Feminist Studies, 14(3), pp. 575-599.

Muller, M. J. (2003). ‘Participatory Design: The Third Space in HCI.’ In Human-Computer Interaction Handbook. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Sensoy, O. and DiAngelo, R. (2017). Is Everyone Really Equal? An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education. 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

Working within a global-facing art and design institution like UAL has made it clear to me that race, class, and language are not peripheral to education. They are central to how students access learning and feel valued. While institutional rhetoric often celebrates “diversity,” in practice, structures of support and recognition remain uneven. Racialised and international students are frequently left to decipher an implicit curriculum shaped by British art school norms that privilege whiteness and Eurocentric discourse.

In light of this, Garrett (2024) highlights how systemic racism shapes the academic lives of racialised scholars in the UK, from precarious contracts to the erasure of long-term career trajectories. This critique resonates with what I have observed in staff conversations at UAL, where international students, particularly those racialised as non-white, are sometimes described as “challenging” or lacking in “criticality.” These comments reflect more than bias—they reveal how certain cultural and linguistic expressions of thinking are consistently devalued.

Taking this further, Bradbury (2020) identifies how institutions often embed low expectations for bilingual learners. This is especially visible in how we assess and feedback on the work of students using English as an additional language. Rather than seeing their multilingualism as an asset, it is frequently viewed as a shortcoming. Students who articulate ideas in non-standard English or draw on unfamiliar intellectual traditions are seen as lacking clarity, rather than expanding what design education might look like.

In response to these systemic issues, I recently gave a talk at Asymmetry Art Foundation, a London-based non-profit dedicated to supporting curatorial practice and contemporary Chinese art. During this talk, I shared my ongoing research on bilingual design and the politics of local language in visual communication. More specifically, I examined how the act of typesetting Chinese and English together in design reveals tensions between narrative, translation, and meaning-making—challenging conventional typographic principles rooted in Western Eurocentric design traditions. For international students at UAL navigating similar tensions, these practices offer a compelling model of cultural and linguistic resistance that validates their lived experiences.

Connecting these insights to broader institutional dynamics, Sara Ahmed (2012) describes diversity policies as often being “non-performative”: they appear progressive but fail to change the structures that sustain exclusion. This contradiction was highlighted by the backlash against the Advance HE video, as noted by Orr (2022), where anti-racist messaging was dismissed as “wokeness.” However, the problem isn’t the language of inclusion—it is the fact that whiteness remains the unspoken standard across our marking criteria, reading lists, and even knowledge system.

Shifting toward meaningful change requires embedding anti-racism into the everyday practices of teaching. This involves asking difficult but necessary questions: Whose ways of speaking are legitimised in crits? Whose histories are deemed central to design? What types of knowledge are rewarded or penalised in assessment? To move beyond surface-level inclusion, we must create space for diverse forms of intelligence, multilingual creativity, and epistemic difference.

Finally, given UAL’s large population of international students—many of whom bring transnational and non-Western perspectives—it is not enough to simply welcome them into an existing system. Anti-racist teaching involves rethinking that system from within. We must support students in ways that are contextually relevant, intellectually generous, and critically aware. Only then can we begin to realise the inclusive values we so often claim to uphold.

References:

Ahmed, S. (2012) On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham: Duke University Press.
Bradbury, A. (2020) ‘A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp. 241–247.
Fry, T. (2009) Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice. Oxford: Berg.
Garrett, R. (2024) ‘Racism shapes careers: Career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp. 2–11.
Orr, J. (2022) ‘Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke’. The Telegraph [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU (Accessed: 24 June 2025).

Proposed title: Situated Design: A Three-Session Workshop for Inclusive Curatorial Practice

As part of the preparation for the MA GDC WIP Show, I propose a three-session workshop series titled Situated Design, designed to embed inclusive learning into the curatorial process of exhibition design. This intervention addresses the diversity of student perspectives, positionalities, and research contexts by making the exhibition process itself a shared learning opportunity.

The workshop will guide students through (1) infrastructural mapping of their research in relation to place, people, and systems; (2) collaborative spatial prototyping of shared zones; and (3) developing a ‘living’ presence for each zone through participatory acts like prompts, live programming, or publishing. Each step emphasizes inclusion: ensuring every voice is situated, heard, and considered in how we collectively shape the exhibition.

The diversity considered includes cultural background, communication style, access needs, research context, and personal identity. These differences are often flattened in traditional design displays. By situating knowledge relationally—rather than through dominant narratives of polished outcomes—we enable a more equitable platform for students to shape how their work is received.

The idea builds on participatory design principles and inclusive pedagogies such as “designing with, not for.” It is directly linked to my teaching context at UAL, where students come from wide-ranging geographies and disciplines, and often feel detached from exhibition-making processes driven by institutional or aesthetic norms.

Potential questions to reflect on:

Agency – Who holds curatorial authorship over what gets shown and how? How do we maintain openness while ensuring clarity and coherence?

Tone – If the format becomes too systematic or templated, does it risk becoming rigid or forced? How can structure enable rather than limit expression?

Equity – Are all students equally supported in expressing their research context? Whose voices or practices might unintentionally be marginalised?

Autonomy – How can individual approaches be maintained within a shared spatial and conceptual framework?

Next Steps: Collect feedback from students on the draft session plans, refine prompts for each zone, and liaise with staff and technical teams to support spatial and material resources.

Notes to references:

1.0 Spatial Practices
The actual way people use and move through space in their daily lifestyle.

• Fry, Tony, & Eleni Kalantidou. (2015). Design in the Borderlands. Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge.
• Campos, Marissa Renee. (2017). Queering Architecture: Appropriating Space and Process (MA thesis). School of Architecture and Interior Design, College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, University of Cincinnati.
• Flesler, Griselda, Anja Neidhardt, and Maya Ober: “A Conversation on the Discomfort of Feminist Design Pedagogy.” In Design Struggles: Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies and Perspectives, edited by Claudia Mareis, Nina Paim et al., 205–225. Amsterdam: Valiz.
• Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell.
  Available at: https://monoskop.org/images/7/75/Lefebvre_Henri_The_Production_of_Space.pdf
• Cresswell, T. (2015). Place: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

2.0 Representation of the Space
The maps, plans, the design — all abstract visual languages used to capture and represent the space.

• De Keersmaeker, A.T., Mees, M., Aerts, J.-M. & Garbin, C. (2023). EXIT ABOVE – after the tempest / d’après la tempête / naar de storm. [Dance performance] Rosas. Premiered 31 May 2023 at Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, Brussels.
  Available at: https://www.rosas.be/en/productions/953-exit-above—after-the-tempest-d-apres-la-tempete-naar-de-storm
• Conditional Design (n.d.). Conditional Design Workbook. [online] Available at: https://conditionaldesign.org/ [Accessed 27 May 2025].

3.0 Engaged / Situated Space
Spaces that are infused with our emotions, memories, and meaning — entangled with lived experience, identity, and context.

• Haraway, Donna J. (1988). “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
• Abdulla, Danah. (2018). Design Otherwise: Towards a Locally-centric Design Education Curricula in Jordan (Ph.D. dissertation). Goldsmiths, University of London.
• Escobar, Arturo. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. (2003). Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

Faith is often an under-acknowledged presence in higher education, particularly in creative disciplines where rational critique and visual literacy are emphasised over personal belief systems. Yet, religious identity continues to shape how students navigate academic spaces—how they speak, listen, dress, represent, and choose what to disclose. In design education, where communication is both medium and message, understanding how faith intersects with other identity markers such as race, class, gender, or migration background is vital to creating inclusive learning environments. Reflecting on my teaching at UAL, I’ve become increasingly aware of how complex and often invisible these intersections can be.

Though religion and spirituality are not always explicitly present in students’ visual outputs, they often shape implicit values, aesthetic sensibilities, and ethical priorities. For example, discussions around symbolism, colour, or gesture often reveal underlying cultural codes tied to belief systems. One student once hesitated to depict a human figure in a poster design, and in our conversation, it became clear that this choice was shaped by a religious upbringing that discouraged idolatry. Such moments underline how vital it is to acknowledge and create space for faith-based perspectives, even when they do not immediately announce themselves in a secular academic setting.

In the UK, UAL’s student population is religiously diverse, yet the institutional environment often frames faith as a private or secondary concern. Jawad’s (2022) article on visible Muslim women in sport highlights how the intersection of gender, religion, and public visibility leads to complex negotiations of identity. Although her context is sport, the same applies in design education, where faith-based modesty, silence, or symbolism may be misinterpreted as disinterest or passivity by tutors unfamiliar with such perspectives. Crenshaw’s framework asks us to resist such flattening. We must remain aware that visible (and invisible) religious identities intersect with ethnicity, gender, and language to shape how students experience inclusion—or exclusion—in the classroom.

Reki’s (2023) writing on epistemic injustice is particularly relevant here. Religious students may feel that their modes of knowledge—ritual, silence, or oral tradition—are discounted in an academic environment that privileges secular, rationalist critique. This leads to what Reki terms “testimonial quieting,” where students self-censor for fear of being misunderstood or dismissed. During the feedback sessions, I now ask not just what is being communicated, but how and why—inviting alternative epistemologies into the room.

My own cultural background—as someone raised in post-socialist China where Buddhism was often repressed or politicised—makes me sensitive to the tensions between faith and state-sanctioned education. Religion was historically framed as an obstacle to progress, and this legacy shapes how some East Asian students approach spiritual topics: with caution, indirectness, or internal conflict. I don’t position this experience at the centre of my pedagogy, but it informs my alertness to the silences in the room—the things that are felt but not spoken.

Ultimately, a pedagogy informed by intersectionality is one that remains attuned to both voice and silence, visibility and absence. In doing so, we open a space in design education where faith is not “othered,” but held as one of many intersecting forces shaping who we are and how we create.

Bibliography:

Crenshaw, K., 1990. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp.1241–1299.

Reki, J., 2023. Religious identity and epistemic injustice: An intersectional account. Hypatia, 38, pp.779–800.

Appiah, K.A., 2014. Is religion good or bad? (This is a trick question). [online video] TEDx Talk. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2et2KO8gcY

Nanbu, H., 2008. Religion in Chinese education: from denial to cooperation. British Journal of Religious Education, 30(3), pp.223–234.

Cottingham, J., 2005. The spiritual dimension: Religion, philosophy and human value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jawad, H., 2022. Islam, women and sport: The case of visible Muslim women. LSE Religion and Global Society. [online] Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2022/09/islam-women-and-sport-the-case-of-visible-muslim-women/

Pew Research Center, 2023. Government policy toward religion in the People’s Republic of China – a brief history. [online] Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/08/30/government-policy-toward-religion-in-the-peoples-republic-of-china-a-brief-history/

Trinity University, 2016. Challenging race, religion, and stereotypes in the classroom. [online video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CAOKTo_DOk

Kimberle Crenshaw’s (1990) theory of intersectionality provides a vital framework for understanding how disability does not exist in isolation, but intersects with other identity factors such as race, gender, class, and language. Crenshaw argues that systems of oppression do not act independently but interlock to create complex modes of marginalisation—an idea clearly illustrated through Christine Sun Kim’s experiences as a deaf Asian American artist.

In Friends and Strangers (Art21, 2023), Sun Kim describes how her education in the U.S. was shaped by constant denial—being told “no” when requesting interpreters or accessible tools. Her deafness intersects with race and language: not only are her needs sidelined institutionally, but even within her Korean-American family, sign language was absent. This layered exclusion speaks to both structural and intimate failures in accessibility.

Her exhibition at the Wellcome Collection with Thomas Mader (1880 THAT: Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader) further interrogates invisibility in design and language. Their collaborative works deconstruct ableist soundscapes and challenge who gets to participate in public discourse. Their approach resonates with James C. Scott’s (1998) critique of “legibility”: governments and institutions simplify complex realities to render people visible to authority—but in doing so, often erase lived knowledge. Sun Kim’s work reclaims this erasure by making the non-auditory visible and politically resonant.

Design decisions often compound these invisibilities. In The Politics of Design, Ruben Pater (2016) critiques the overreliance on a single icon—the wheelchair—to represent all disabilities. He argues that this reinforces a limited view of disability as permanent and homogenous. Instead, many disabilities are temporary or dynamic. Similarly, the ColorADD® system offers a more inclusive design strategy. By incorporating graphic symbols to indicate colour for colourblind users (ColorADD®, 2024), it counters the legibility bias critiqued by Scott and reflects a more decentralised, adaptive approach to accessibility.

In design education—particularly within graphic design—there is an urgent need to rethink how communication itself is conceptualised. Too often, visual communication privileges normative audiences: sighted, neurotypical, and hearing. This raises a fundamental question—who are we designing for, and who gets excluded in that process? If students are only taught to communicate to the “majority,” they reproduce the very systems that marginalise others. Educators must emphasise the politics of visibility and legibility in design practice. Awareness of typography, colour systems, sound, language, and interface must go beyond aesthetics into the realm of ethics and access. Graphic design is not neutral; it can exclude as easily as it can include.

Disability is not a static label but a fluid experience shaped by systems of visibility and power. As Sun Kim’s work demonstrates, access is not just about ramps or subtitles—it’s about reimagining participation, authorship, and belonging. Crenshaw’s framework reminds us that these systems overlap and compound, and meaningful accessibility must account for the whole person—not just the parts made legible to policy.

Bibliography:

Art21 (2023) Christine Sun Kim in “Friends & Strangers” – Season 11. [Online video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NpRaEDlLsI [Accessed 23 May 2025].

ColorADD® (2024) Color Identification System. [Online] Available at: https://www.coloradd.net/en/coloradd-code/#:~:text=ColorADD%C2%AE%20is%20a%20unique [Accessed 23 May 2025].

Crenshaw, K. (1990) ‘Intersectionality’, Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp. 1241–1299.

Pater, R. (2016) The Politics of Design: A (Not So) Global Manual for Visual Communication. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers

Scott, J.C. (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Metal Magazine (2025) ‘Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader: Reimagining Communication’. [Online] Available at: https://metalmagazine.eu/post/christine-sun-kim-and-thomas-mader [Accessed 23 May 2025].

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Reading Doubting Learning Outcomes in Higher Education Contexts by Addison brings forward questions about how we define and measure learning. The text unsettles the idea that learning can be fully captured through predetermined outcomes. Instead, Addison advocates for an approach that allows for negotiation and emergence. This perspective brings me back to my own struggles with formal assessment structures in design education. There is often an expectation that learning should follow a linear path, but in my experience, true intellectual and creative growth unfolds in unpredictable ways.

When I teach, I notice that students often approach assignments with an acute awareness of assessment criteria, sometimes to the detriment of their own creative and critical instincts. They ask: “What do I need to do to meet the outcome?” rather than “Where can I take this idea?” This fixation on predefined goals is what Addison critiques, pointing out that “learning outcomes are too often framed in terms of what students should have achieved by the end of the course” (Addison, 2014). The assumption is that knowledge is something to be attained rather than embodied or situated. But what if learning is more about movement, about the shifting nature of ideas as they develop through dialogue, making, and reflection?

Christine Schranz’s introduction Commons for Design, Design for Commons in Commons in Design proposed another way of thinking about knowledge production. Schranz describes the commons as an ongoing negotiation, a space where different voices interact to create something collectively. She writes, “The commons are places of sharing and negotiation, where different voices contribute to a collective understanding” (Schranz, 2024). In this way, learning is not about arriving at a fixed destination but about engaging with others in a process of exchange. My own experiences with students have reinforced this. The moments when they challenge each other’s ideas, when they push beyond what was expected, are often the most meaningful.

This is also where Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society enters the conversation. Illich critiques traditional education for its rigid institutional structures, which condition learners to believe that knowledge is something dispensed by an authority rather than something created through lived experience. His argument pushes me to reconsider how much of my own teaching is shaped by institutional expectations. If learning is to be meaningful, it must be freed from rigid frameworks that dictate what “success” should look like.

In the history, the experimental ethos of Black Mountain College challenges conventional notions of education outside of hierarchical governance structures that risk stifling innovation. The college operated on the belief that learning happens through doing—through risk-taking, improvisation, and collaboration. This history reminds me that as an educator, I am not just delivering content but facilitating conditions where knowledge can emerge organically. It makes me question whether I, too, sometimes fall into the trap of seeking measurable results at the expense of deeper, less predictable forms of learning.

Reading these texts, I return to a simple but pressing question: How can I create an environment where students feel empowered to pursue knowledge beyond the limits of predefined learning outcomes? Addison, Schranz, Illich, and the experimental practices of Black Mountain College suggest that the answer lies in allowing uncertainty, in continuous dialogue, and in recognizing that learning is always in motion and in commons.

References

Addison, P. (2014). Doubting learning outcomes in higher education contexts: From performativity towards emergence and negotiation.

Schranz, C. (2024). Commons for design, design for commons. In Commons in Design (pp. 14-20). Valiz.

Illich, I. (1971). Deschooling society. Harper & Row.

PAGES Teacher Resources. (2016). Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957. WexPages. Retrieved from https://wexpagesonline.edublogs.org/files/2016/08/PAGES-Teacher-Resources_Look-Before-You-Leap-11e6hel.pdf