Prospecting anticolonial qualities in Design Education

Abstract

The craft of formal and functional aesthetic qualities, overtly typical of dependent markets, characterizes Design Education in Brazil. In addition to reinforcing the cultural stereotypes conferred by colonizers on local people, such qualities contribute to maintaining the inequality that describes the historical colonial relationship. Critical Education in Design seeks to transform this reality through anticolonial praxis, even though little is known about its qualities. We conducted a prospective study on the relational qualities that emerged from the anticolonial praxis of the Design & Oppression network composed by university extension projects of associated laboratories in several Brazilian institutions. Weave this network several Brazilian educational initiatives dedicated to critical pedagogy, working with social movements. Following a practice of Latin American social movements, the choice for the term anticolonial indicates that explicit political action is associated with popular struggles in this praxis, from which six qualities emerge: freedom, criticality, solidarity, autonomy, dialogicity, and monstrosity.