This is UDEC, a Milan based collective of designers and activists whose work concerns the development of participatory strategies to support digital and epistemic liberation. Our work is guided by transfeminist, anticolonial and agonistic principles, which permeates aspects of our work as well as personal lifestyle. Our group recently formed along the will to work more closely on social innovation projects and social justice, bringing together the expertises of the members accumulated over the years.
Marion (she/her) is a French service and UX designer that works to promote social and environmental sustainability. Specialized in digital ethics and the promotion of design responsibilities in France, she developed guidelines to train and engage designers while developing digital products. She recently adapted her tool to public sector necessities and intervened with French government designers in order to create cultural changes “from the inside”. In parallel, she works as a service designer for diversity in inclusion, fighting against ageism and abilism, integrating hospitals, nursing home and volunteering in associations.
Riccardo (he/him) is an Italian service designer and researcher whose work focuses on systemic oppression and design for social innovation, with a specific interest on how just transitions can occur with participatory, reflexive and decolonial practices. In the past he has developed projects dealing with collective awareness of coloniality within innovation processes. More specifically, he facilitated a series of workshops with designers where modernist assumptions of progress were challenged by reflecting together what ideas stood behind the design methods and tools that were used within a healthcare project with rural communities.
We met during our studies, both interested in the role and responsibility of designers, mixing academic research, participatory approaches and collective intelligence. For a few years then, they have worked in academia and the professional field, developing the critical theories around community activation processes as well as the relational tools to bring about meaningful actions.
We aim to act as “cross-polinisators” to revolutionize and reinvent a more equitable socio-ecological system, positioning ourselves as enablers rather than solution providers, collaborating with those involved, questioning our own cognitive biases and positionalities throughout the entire process, and sharing our findings to foster engagement.
And because there are always people behind professionals, let’s get the presentation:
- Marion is a tattooer, plant lover and ceramist. She speaks to elderly people to learn about their stories, walk to think and can observe people on public benches for hours.
- Riccardo is an avid reader, birder and illustrator. Every month you can see him at a local market selling second-hand clothes and spreading awareness around sustainable lifestyles.
They both share a sincere love for festivals, nature and friends hang out. All places of resistance.