The DHS Student Forum announces Ahmed Ansari as the student-curated keynote speaker.

Conference & Events

28 July 2021

Ahmed Ansari (in conversation with Tai Cossich and Sandra Bischler) will be the keynote speaker of the pre-conference student-led events on Wednesday, September 1, 6.30–7.50 pm (CEST/GMT +2).

Decolonisation, the History of Design, and the Design of History

Ahmed Ansari (New York University)

The DHS annual conferences are keen to support the engagement of early career researchers. This year the convenors asked the DHS Student Forum to curate a keynote lecture for the conference. They decided for Ahmed Ansari, who after his lecture will engage in a conversation with Tai Cossich (PhD student, DHS Student Officer) and Sandra Bischler (PhD Student, member of the Convenor Team).The keynote lecture attempts to do four things: to map the current terrain of decolonial scholarship and practice in light of the uses of (design) history, recognize challenges and problems to decolonisation through theorizing historical interpretation as an impossible and incomplete project of reclamation, introduce several binaries that constitute questions that are and are not being asked in the decolonial turn around designing histories, and proposing four areas or sites of engagement that may constitute projects for design historians to work within moving forward.

Ahmed Ansari is an Assistant Professor in Integrated Design and Media at New York University. His research and writing sits at the intersection of design studies and critical cultural theory, with a focus on decolonising knowledge production in design ethnography, history, and theory.

This keynote lecture is free and open to everyone (those registered and those not registered for the DHS 2021 Annual Conference), but participants must book via Eventbrite in advance. Secure your place before Wednesday 25 August 12 midnight (CEST/GMT+2). You will receive a confirmation e-mail with the Zoom link to this event.