Taking Back Design

How many spatial designers does it take to create a protest mural? Over a hundred convened at the four-day Design Justice Summit—organized by the Design As Protest Collective and local studio Colloqate—to engage in critical workshops and forward the radical vision of social and cultural reparation through the processes and outcomes of design. In each of the five sessions, facilitators framed conversations around existing initiatives to abolish carceral spaces, preserve and invest in Black and Indigenous spaces, restructure relationships to power and labor, and promote a just energy transition. Strategies for centering community voices in design and ending hostile architecture and landscapes were deliberated. In between workshops, attendees socialized over meals, unwound in a guided yoga session, and relaxed in something called the Energy Takeback Lounge. The mural—a collaboratively made spatial representation of this year’s summit—was a fitting terminus, and evidence that the work of design justice is ultimately a collective endeavor in which all designers should participate.