Seven international design industry experts, representatives of academia and practicing designers talk about the importance of design and research in highlighting social and systemic problems in various countries around the world. The talk was organised and moderated by Aija Freimane, PhD.

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Neeta Verma Professor at the Notre Dame University Department of Art, Art History & Design, USA. “The memory project: reweaving threads of loss, love and hope” addresses the challenging and systemic problem of youth violence in a community in the United States.

Jing Zhou Interdisciplinary artist, designer, researcher, and professor at Monmouth University, USA. “From the Mothers' Movement to Cradlr: An Interaction Design for Refugee Children” - inspired by the Mothers’ Movement in China and European countries during World War II, this project goes beyond the realm of digital product design in an attempt to find a humanitarian solution to a complex social challenge.

Leah Cleary Recent Visual Communication graduate of TU Dublin’s School of Art and Design. A study “Time to Change Perceptions: A Multimodal Analysis of Female Domestic Abuse Campaigns in Ireland” aims to identify what the principles of visual communication design reveal about the portrayal of female domestic abuse in visual campaigns in Ireland over the last two decades.

Ana Tobin Recent graduate M.F.A. in Graphic Design at the Maryland Institute College of Art, USA. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at George Mason University. Her “Neuro Divergent” through experiential graphic design exhibition asks what does it feel like to have a learning disability or disorder?

Linda Spillane Neurodivergent thinker, designer and maker with a background in Interior Design and Furniture Design. “AFFORDANCE of text for the reader with ADHD. Case study of visual communication experiments” tells the story of a person born with ADHD who is born with an invisible disability.

Žanete Eglīte Doctoral student at the Latvian Academy of Culture with more than 18 years of experience in the advertising and design industries. “Sensorial inclusion” as sensory features of products and services affect emotions, memories, perception, choices, and consumption.

Sara Kristoffersson, PhD, Professor of Design History, Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden. In Design by IKEA (Bloomsbury 2014) she investigates how the world dominating brand IKEA has controversially come to define a nation. In her last book Hela havet stormar [Musical chairs, Volante 2022] Kristoffersson discuss how identity politics and cancel culture affect academic culture. It is based on a nationally well-known case at Konstfack in Sweden. “Musical chairs. Identity politics in practice and the dangers with norm criticism” - in February 2021 Kristoffersson published an article in Sweden’s largest daily newspaper about how identity politics affected Konstfack, as a result of which 44 colleagues signed a petition against her. This affair caused a huge debate in Swedish media. A year later she published the book Hela havet stormar [Musical chairs] about the debacle. In her talk she is going to highlight this case.

Aija Freimane, PhD, introduced the development of research-based design solutions in Latvia in 2008, which she practiced at the Art Academy of Latvia until 2020. Since 2021, Aija has been a lecturer and researcher at TU Dublin School of Art and Design. From 2017-2022, Aija conducted the only postdoctoral study in design in Latvia to date, "An identification system for design's socio-economic towards transformation to a knowledge-intensive economy in Latvia". Its results have proved to be internationally significant. In 2021, she was awarded the prestigious A'Design Award Meta Award in the Strategic and Service Design category.

“Design & Research” is organised by SEGD Riga Chapter in cooperation with design studio H2E, the State Culture capital foundation, the Swedish Institute in Stockholm and the Embassy of Sweden in Latvia and SEGD.