Research
Studio
Working Group: “Imaginative Methods – the radical and the critical in research”
Led by Gillian Russell & Frédérik Lesage
This working group is a fortnightly gathering of graduate students across various schools who are employing, or aim to employ, imaginative methods as a part of their research. Recent scholarship in the social sciences, humanities, art and design has drawn attention to the politics of the imagination, arguing for the radical imagination as a key device for thinking and acting in times of crisis (Escobar, 2018; Haiven, 2014; Keeling, 2019; Khasnabish & Haiven, 2017). These scholars and practitioners define the radical imagination as a way to “reimagine the imagination”, and as a collective process that holds the potential to animate new ways of perceiving and thinking about the world. By bringing together the radical and imagination, they suggest a methodological commitment to the transformation of reality. However, while calls for the imagination abound, to date there are few resources to help researchers incorporate this collective process into their own research practices.
This group sets out to explore, assess, and analyze various methodological approaches for animating the radical imagination through method. Together we will engage in critical reflections with conceptual and methodological frameworks, case studies, and hands-on workshops to further our knowledge of how to weave together the imagination and method.
Workshop Series: “The Way We See It”
These workshop sessions are designed to invite researchers to consider how imaginative methods can be incorporated into various stages of their ongoing research process. We invite researchers to collectively share and explore their research projects (including any researchers affiliated with the lab) in open-ended sessions that function as co-creation sessions to help researchers reflect on key concepts related to their investigations through modalities other than the written word and how insights gained from such reflections could apply to further developing theory and methodology.
Event / Talk / Conference
Upcoming
Open Panel: From Literal Representations to Littoral Relations: Designing Situated Knowledge Practices for Shoreline Ecosystems
Presented by: Gillian Russell, Katherine Reilly
4S, 2025
Seattle, September 3-7th, 2025
This panel invites participation by thinkers and doers whose work on shorelines and land-sea ecosystems seeks to theorize, imagine, speculate about, renarrate, or experiment with the generation of situated knowledges and relational ways of being.
Oceanside cities like Seattle have a long history of reimagining their shorelines, but today the residents of littoral zones must consider their relationship to the water with new urgency as they take on wicked problems related to climate change, sea-level rise, species extinction, shipping, waste management and consumerism. In these panels, we will explore pluriversal strategies for imagining and interacting with shorelines, especially strategies that move us towards relational thought processes, narratives and practices.
Past
Exhibition: Outpost for Unreal Institutions
Presented by: Samein Shamsher, Pete Fung
Dutch Design Week, 2024
Eindhoven, Netherlands 18 – 26th October, 2024
Workshop: Rethinking Data and Behaviours in a Plastic World
Presented by: Jihyun Park
DRS 2024 Boston
Resistance, Recovery, Reflection, Reimagination
June 23rd-28th, 2024
Northeastern University, Boston, MA USA
Workshop: Imagining the Unimaginable: Tools for Futuring in the Design Classroom
Presented by: Samein Shamsher
DRS 2024 Boston
Resistance, Recovery, Reflection, Reimagination
June 23rd-28th, 2024
Northeastern University, Boston, MA USA
Workshop: Rethinking Data and Behaviours in a Plastic World
Presented by: Jihyun Park
Information+ Conference 2023
Interdisciplinary practices in information design & visualization
22nd – 24th November 2023
Edinburgh, UK
Talk: Disturbing Conservation: Remapping the Avencas Marine Protected Area
Presented by: Gillian Russell
4S 2023 Honolulu
THEME: SEA, SKY, AND LAND: ENGAGING IN SOLIDARITY IN ENDANGERED ECOLOGIES
November 8-11, 2023
Talk: Forest Carbon Futures: Co-Designing for Critical Data Literacies at the Confluence
of the Ecological and Climate Crises
Presented by: Hannah Carpendale
4S 2023 Honolulu
THEME: SEA, SKY, AND LAND: ENGAGING IN SOLIDARITY IN ENDANGERED ECOLOGIES
November 8-11, 2023
Workshop: Rethinking Data and Behaviours in a Plastic World
Presented by: Jihyun Park
4S 2023 Honolulu
THEME: SEA, SKY, AND LAND: ENGAGING IN SOLIDARITY IN ENDANGERED ECOLOGIES
November 8-11, 2023
Talk: Data by Me, You, and Us: Transformable Data for Eco-Social Changes
Presented by: Jihyun Park
4S 2023 Honolulu
THEME: SEA, SKY, AND LAND: ENGAGING IN SOLIDARITY IN ENDANGERED ECOLOGIES
November 8-11, 2023
Workshop: Fabulating Futures: Exploring the Possibilities for Value Based Design
Presented by: Samein Shamsher
Mindtrek, 2023
Tampere, Finland October 3-6, 2023
Workshop: Fabulation and digital fluencies: A case study of the Fables for Imagining
Presented by: Gillian Russell, Frédérik Lesage, & Craig Badke
Global Media Education Summit 2023
Bournemouth University
Vancouver, BC
March 2nd – 4th 2023
Workshop: Fables for Imagining: Critical storymaking and digital literacies
Presented by: Gillian Russell, Frédérik Lesage, & Craig Badke
DRS2022 BILBAO
FRI, 1 JULY 2022 15:00 – 18:00 CEST
Publication
Book: Imaginative Methods
by Gillian Russell and Frédérik Lesage (In process)
Born out of dark times, Imaginative Methods argues that we must turn to the critical imagination to think and act in times of crisis. Bringing together a range of interdisciplinary approaches, this collection of methods provides inspiration and guidance to researchers interested in engaging publics to re(think) the present, apprehend the unknown, and intervene in the world. Understanding that we need to expand the empirical toolkit to fully encounter research as a collective endeavour, and to extend the rights of research into the public domain, Imaginative Methods redesigns method. Presented as a purposeful thinking otherwise of research drawn from art, design, and the social sciences, Imaginative Methods offers a truly unique take on how to imagine through method. A commitment to transforming reality, this collection of methods – ranging from Prompting to Yarning, Tasking and Charretting – provides critical and creative tools to inspire action and new forms of solidarity.
Article: Reimagine Futures
by Gillian Russell
Born out of dark times, Imaginative Methods argues that we must turn to the critical imagination to think and act in times of crisis. Bringing together a range of interdisciplinary approaches, this collection of methods provides inspiration and guidance to researchers interested in engaging publics to re(think) the present, apprehend the unknown, and intervene in the world. Understanding that we need to expand the empirical toolkit to fully encounter research as a collective endeavour, and to extend the rights of research into the public domain, Imaginative Methods redesigns method. Presented as a purposeful thinking otherwise of research drawn from art, design, and the social sciences, Imaginative Methods offers a truly unique take on how to imagine through method. A commitment to transforming reality, this collection of methods – ranging from Prompting to Yarning, Tasking and Charretting – provides critical and creative tools to inspire action and new forms of solidarity.