LEIDA: ISSUE No. 9 – MAKING TROUBLE
The 2026 Autumn issue of Leida will focus on conceptualising design activism and interventional critical design practices. The open call for this issue invites proposals for essays, interviews, case studies, design criticism, and other written or visual forms.
There has always been an activist element to design: it doesn’t accept things in their default state. Design attempts to better the world, remove barriers, solve wicked problems and make everyday life more comfortable, seamless and accessible. But bettering the world in this way can resemble conquering it. Every such solution brings about new problems, and if design only focuses on solving problems, it becomes part of one.
Maybe, for this reason, we should not just design better solutions but also better problems, and make trouble in situations where things operate too smoothly: where injustice has become invisible, habitual practices support existing power structures, and public space and the common good are organised at someone’s expense.
The 9th issue of Leida seeks to examine design activism beyond the visualisation of political messages alone. Activism doesn’t only mobilise people and demands, but also objects, spaces, bodies, infrastructures, knowledge and patterns of use, through which democracy is practiced and reimagined on a daily basis. An umbrella protects us from the rain but it can also protect us from tear gas; barricades have an architecture, and a protest requires care and organising.
When do counter-practices and “misuse” become political acts? How do care, solidarity, participation, autonomy and resistance take form through design? And in which ways might activist practices be reduced to style, cultural capital or a monetisable image?
If these topics are of interest to you and you would like to contribute to the upcoming issue of Leida, please send us a short summary of your proposed submission, outlining the focus of the article and the central questions you would like to discuss.
Guest editor: Margus Tamm
Application deadline: 10.08.2026
Selection announcement: August 2026
Launch of the issue: December 2026
APPLICATION
Please send an abstract (max 500 words) and 1–3 images (if suitable) to margusugram@gmail.com
ABOUT LEIDA
Leida is an online journal initiated by the Faculty of Design, Estonian Academy of Arts and is focused on publishing texts that describe, analyse and reflect upon the various facets of being human and non-human through the critical visual, material and processual aspects of design. Leida brings together both Estonian and foreign practitioners and theorists with a background in design, craft, architecture, visual arts or the fields in between. The journal provides a discussion platform that empowers a multiplicity of different media, disciplines and perspectives in order to ensure a level of criticality and adequacy to understand the modern person, their experience and the surrounding environment.