2.2 Queer(ing) Design Research/Practice

Corresponding Chairs

Jess Parris Westbrook (they/them), DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, United States 

Gem Barton (she/her), Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdom

Co-Chairs

Laura Galluzzo (she/her), Politecnico di Milano, Milan, IT

Valentina Ferreri (she/her), Politecnico di Milano, Milan, IT

Sloan Leo Cowan (they/he), FLOX Studio, New York, NY, USA

Rose Hsu (she/her), DO School Fellow, Hamburg, DE

Brooke Hull (they/them), Penn State University, Stuckeman School, USA

Simon Liao, University of Waterloo, CA

Nishanth (Nish) Srikanth, Herron School of Art + Design, USA

Raphaele (Raphi) Tayvah, Plantayvah, USA

Chenxi Cui, Guangdong University of Technology, CN

Abstract

The new Queer(ing) Design Research Studio represents a critically engaged approach to both research and practice. It intersects and integrates LGBTQIA+ identities, lived experiences, embodiment, and reflexivity with design directions, frameworks, methods, and outcomes—valuing emergent complexity, radical imagination, and provocation. The Studio interrogates normative systems while exploring the processes of norm-breaking and norm-making, supporting the generation of creative frictions that challenge dominant design paradigms.

In addition to queer(ing) research/practice, the inaugural Queer(ing) Design Research Theme Track invites explorations of queer data, economies, time, and futures. It also encourages consideration of ethics and rigor—particularly when queer(ing) is inherently unruly and necessarily blurs and pushes boundaries. Approaches such as circumvention, subversion, and disruption may be essential strategies for questioning authority and advancing the transformative, liberatory aspects of design research. Joy and hope are also powerful forces.

Prompts:

1. What is meant by queer(ing) in design research/practice?

2. How does queer(ing) shape spaces, systems, materials, artifacts, outcomes?

3. What do ethics and rigor mean when queer(ing) design?

4. How can queer(ing) design contribute to worldmaking, liberation, joy, hope?

5. How do we share queer(ing) practice without imposing norms, flattening processes, or reducing complexity?

Keywords

lived experience, embodiment, reflexivity, radical imagination, norm-breaking/norm-making

References

Barton, G. (2024) Queer Futures: Correlations between queer identity and imagination literacy, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.292

Ferreri, V., & Galluzzo, L. (2025). Queering the City: Reclaiming Space Between Spontaneous Actions and Design Practices. In C. Sedini (Ed.),Gender Perspectives for a Renewed Design Culture. Unveiling Dynamics in Academic, Professional and Civic Lives of Women. (pp. 141-157). Springer.

Prochner, I. (2014) Incorporating Queer Understandings of Sex and Gender in Design Research and Practice, in Lim, Y., Niedderer, K., Redström, J., Stolterman, E. and Valtonen, A. (eds.), Design's Big Debates - DRS International Conference 2014, 16-19 June, Umeå, Sweden. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2014/researchpapers/122

Turtle, G.L. (2022) Mutant in the mirror: Queer becomings with AI, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.782

Westbrook, J.(2023) Queering Futures with Data-Driven Speculation: the design of an expanded mixed methods research framework integrating qualitative, quantitative, and practice-based modes., in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.725