Utopian Nightmares Speculative Design and Feminist Futuring with Design Students

Abstract

Futuring is an exercise in thinking about, picturing possible outcomes in, and planning for the future. In design, futuring is a deeply fraught process shaped by who is in the room, the tools used, and the belief systems that are reinforced. The feminist cultural studies scholar Sarah Kember asserts that futurism is problematic in its adherence to technology-driven visions that play out a limited dualism of utopias and dystopias (1). Utopian thinking, especially, has been criticized as well-intentioned but naive attempts to solve complex social problems with simplistic technological solutions (2). Feminist utopian thinking, however, reconstructs the idea of a radically better future without attempting to define it, viewing utopianism as an activity rather than a completed image. It holds “multiple possible futures-in-process" (3). It is emergent and contingent rather than comprehensive (4).

This paper shares the account of a project called Utopian Nightmares, facilitated with undergraduate and graduate students in the Design + Feminism course at the University of Arkansas in spring 2024. Students experimented with the application of feminist utopias to generate speculative design concepts in response to a need or a situation in their imagined future. The future they envision could be plausible, possible, preferable, or none of the above. With the understanding that one person's utopia might be someone else's nightmare, students engaged with Donna Haraway’s definition of irony: “the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary or true; Irony is about humor and serious play" (5). The 18 unique projects were presented as posters that explored varying issues such as the political system, AI, local food systems, habitation of other planets, and the singularity. Their proposals represent multiple possible futures-in-process that enact critical making as a means to reconsider the role of design in addressing our collective liberation.