Personal Profile

I am a designer and researcher exploring the domain between design and anthropology. Working at the department ‘Anthropology of Economic Experimentation’, my current research, design, and curatorial practices revolve around the idea of the nearby. The nearby refers to the surroundings of the subject. I am particularly interested in how the nearby can afford individuals to build a deep understanding of their relationship with the world and cultivate action for self-repair and social transformation.

In my practical philosophy, design is a process of creative inquiry that allows individuals to consciously observe, narrate, and make sense of their lives and surroundings. I do not see design interventions as necessarily leading to immediate social change or permanent solutions. I believe design could be an attentive creation that nurtures awareness, patience, and agency as individuals face personal and collective challenges.

In 2022, I co-initiated the workshop Seeing the First 500 Meters. In the workshop, 42 young citizens carried out observations in their nearby as the basis for creating artworks. The goal was not simply to make art, but to cultivate an artistic awareness that helps participants become more attentive to the phenomena of everyday life. Thanks to the participants’ contributions, what began as a three-month program has since grown into a long-term collective social initiative. Some participants continue to use their nearby as a personal testing ground for repairing both personal and public life. A documentation book titled Seeing the First 500 Meters, for which I am the leading editor, is forthcoming.

My nearby-centered design practice has also unfolded in Germany. I’ve been actively involved in the project Remind the Nearby, which includes workshops, exhibitions, and podcasts. This project invites migrant women to use photography as a way to observe and express their experiences of settling and creating a new nearby in Halle (Saale). Besides, I also collaborate with universities in China to explore the pedagogical potential of the nearby in arts and design education. In particular, I am exploring the forms of courses and educational materials that could support students in using their immediate surroundings as critical resources through which they can build more embodied understandings of society and others.

My research is positioned at the intersection of design, phenomenology, and affordance theory. Whether working with youth, migrant women, or in design education, I explore how subtle changes occur in everyday life as individuals navigate their relationship with the world around them. I’m passionate about re-theorizing the relationship between design and change and trying to move beyond the dominant focus on solutionism in design to highlight the situated and relational nature of transformation.

Before joining the MPI, I completed my PhD in design at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. My dissertation, Soiling Service Design: Situating Professional Designing Among Plural Practices, examined how professional design practices are situated within local contexts. Based on long-term design engagements in hospitals in China and Norway, and drawing on the theory of material semiotics, my research sheds light on the tensions service designers face when trying to form meaningful connections between their work and the complex realities of local environments. The project was part of the Centre for Connected Care and was fully funded by the Norwegian Research Council.