(Archive) "Danah Abdulla presents" & "Question Closely"

Designerly ways of knowing

Led by Antonio Gramsci’s advice that knowing yourself requires compiling an inventory, design critic, educator and researcher Danah Abdulla pays tribute to the late architect, activist and critic Michael Sorkin, whose original list "Two Hundred and Fifty Things an Architect Should Know" inspired this updated version. Targeting designers this time, this iterative list aims to spark conversation, to prompt critical thinking and to help designers reconfigure their discipline.

Danah Abdulla is a Palestinian-Canadian designer, educator and researcher. She is Programme Director of Graphic Design at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges of Arts (University of the Arts London). Her research focuses on decolonising design, design education, design culture(s) with a focus on the Arab region, the politics of design, publishing and social design.

Question Closely

Eleonora Toniolo made a game to collectively reflect, combining instructions and simple protocols inspired by the exhibition “Design in Conversation”. Her latest projects seek to activate simple gestures of collective care, which she translated into tools and workshops for you to try out at this event.

Eleonora Toniolo (b. 1990 in Italy) is an interdisciplinary designer—in the midst of social, graphic and product design—based in Berlin. She has a love for creating relational experiences. As a natural collaborator and aggregator herself, her work is often applied in community building and maintenance processes.