LEE, Chris; ABDULLAH, Nida; LI, Xinyi (eds.)
Through Witnessing. Threading the critiquing, making, teaching of design

This book names and wrestles with design and institutional design education’s pseudo-neutral relationship with colonial capitalist world orders and what it means to teach and design today. It slowly weaves together ideas on designing as a mechanism of maintenance and teaching against bureaucratic inertia. How does design give form to social fictions? How does design and the professionalization of design schooling maintain the priorities of nations and capital? Engaging in pedagogical expressions of rage, generosity, forgiveness, slowness, and chaos; contributions of lecture, essay and interview reflect on the weight of being, the possibilities and sometimes impossibilities towards un-doing and un-maintaining the enduring legacies of colonial powers. [publishers’ note]

With contributions by Uzma Z. Rizvi, Ahmed Ansari, Kelly Walters, Hayfaa Chalabi, Maya Ober, Lauren Williams, Elaine Lopez, Danielle Aubert, Silvio Lorusso and John Jennings.

Published by Set Margins, 2024
Design by Chris Lee, Nida Abdullah, Xinyi Li
Essays / Graphic Design / Education