Stories

We offer a lively monthly program of online workshops, lectures, panel discussions, and networking events around the politics of design.

Learning

We offer a lively monthly program of online workshops, lectures, panel discussions, and networking events around the politics of design.

Community

We are a globally-dispersed team of mostly womxn and non-binary designers, writers, journalists, editors, researchers, educators, artists, activists and beyond.

#Past Lecture

Deforestation as Epistemicide

April 23, 2021 | 5 pm CEST | with Franca López Barbera, designer, researcher and curator


Deforestation as Epistemicide

When a tree is cut down, what is actually being destroyed? Which kind of knowledge surfaces with regards to Nature and how to relate to it? Departing from and following the environmental destruction of the Gran Chaco region of Argentina, this presentation will explore how the dispossession of land goes hand in hand with the systematic destruction of forms of knowledge other than the Eurocentric thought. Deforestation produces a double destruction: the material destruction of nature understood as a resource and an onto-epistemic destruction of nature as a collective subject. The result is the destruction of the whole sphere of existence, which includes the sphere of knowledge, of those colonised for whom Nature is, simply put, life.

Franca López Barbera is an Argentinian designer, researcher, and curator based in Berlin. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design and a Master of Science in Design Research. Her work explores the intersection between nature, coloniality, gender, and ethics. Her current research builds on the introduction of consent in design-nature relationalities against extractive regimes. Prior to this, Franca has straddled several professions, working with various design practices, art studios, non-profits, and academic institutions. She is currently curating the Argentinian pavilion for the 2021 London design Biennale.

Register here for the Against the Grain Online Course to watch the lecture synchronously and asynchronously


This lecture is part of the Against the Grain Online Course:

April 16 | 5 pm CEST
Decolonizing Colonial Desire
with Uzma Rizvi

April 23 | 5 pm CEST
Deforestation as Epistemicide
with Franca López Barbera

April 30 | 5 pm CEST
Imperial Fevers, Invisible Lives
with Edna Bonhomme

May 7 | 5 pm CEST
The Frame of History
with Evan Nicole Brown

May 14 | 5 pm CEST
Finding Louise E. Jefferson
with Tasheka Arceneux-Sutton

May 21 | 5 pm CEST
Ladies of Letters
with Bahia Shehab

May 28 | 5 pm CEST
Salted Waters in the Whorls of Time
with Luiza Prado de O. Martins

June 4 | 5 pm CEST
Visualising the Invisible
with Sria Chatterjee