Peer-review of Vitali Valtanen’s first case study

On Wednesday, 26 August at 15:00–16:30, the public peer-review of Art and Design doctoral student and junior researcher Vitali Valtanen’s first case study “A Pedagogical Experiment in Interspecies Design” will take place at EKA in room A502 and on Zoom (Meeting ID: 644 8482 7067, Passcode: 484233).

Reviewers: Dr. Svenja Keune (University of Borås, Sweden) and Sergio Dávila (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México / EKA).
Supervisors: Dr. Kristi Kuusk (EKA) and Dr. Kadri Aavik (Tallinn University).

The case study is part of the practice-led doctoral thesis “Reimagining urban spaces for multispecies coexistence: design methodologies that recognise non-human animals as active agents”. It describes how a mandatory bachelor-level course, previously built around human-centred design, was rebuilt as a course in interspecies design. The study documents the methods developed for the course and how they worked in teaching.

Interspecies design is a strand within more-than-human design that keeps non-human animals specifically in view. It designs for and with humans and other species, recognising their needs, their agency, and the habitat we share. The starting point of the course is an ethical one: design is never a value-free activity, and design education is where much of it is decided — who comes to count as a user and who is treated as simply part of the site. Across Europe this field is taught mainly at master’s and doctoral level, as a mandatory bachelor-level course it is rare. One of the questions the experiment asks is whether this thinking belongs in a designer’s first training.

The event is public and will be held in English.