The disruptive aesthetics of design activism: Enacting design between art and politics

The aim of this paper is above all to construct a
new conceptual framework for understanding how
and why design activism in public space matters.
The paper sets off by providing a literature review
of some of the existing theoretical frameworks in
design research for understanding design activism.
In so doing, I will identify a theoretical ‘blind spot’
in the research literature, which has blocked our
view of how design activism functions as an
aesthetic practice and not only a socio-political
one. To remedy this shortcoming, I then introduce
some notions from Rancière (2004; 2010) that
enable design research to better explain the close
interrelationship between aesthetics and the
political in design activism. This will be further
demonstrated through a series of case examples
from current urban design activism. On the basis of
this, I finally offer a more meaningful framework
for the practice and study of urban design activism.