Utopian Epistles on Dissent, Disagreement, and Disillusionment
Paper in proceeding, 2026
This Situated Action proposes the building of a correspondence archive, initiated by Pelle Ehn, and now expanded towards the PDC community. In this proposal, we turn from the archive's current focus on peace, dialogue, and coexistence towards a generational turn that considers the need for expressing and making space for dissent, disagreement, and disillusionment. In a world in disarray, we turn to unpacking our own participation in systems of oppression and rethinking the role of participatory design in those same mechanisms. This action encompasses the making and starting of an archive in honour of the conversations that need to happen between us to build the dialogue and coexistence we dream of in our utopias.
co-design
letters
correspondence
Author
Mafalda Samuelsson-Gamboa
Chalmers, Computer Science and Engineering (Chalmers), Interaction Design and Software Engineering
University of Gothenburg
Malmö university
Ida Larsen-Ledet
University College Cork
Malmö university
Sanna Marttila
Malmö university
IT University of Copenhagen
Erik Sandelin
Malmö university
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Shaowen Bardzell
Malmö university
Georgia Institute of Technology
Lone Koefoed Hansen
Aarhus University
Malmö university
Anna Seravalli
Aarhus University
Malmö university
Pelle Ehn
Malmö university
Aarhus University
Pdc 2026 Proceedings of the 19th Participatory Design Conference 2026 Vol 3 Workshops Situated Actions and Pdc Places
97-100
9798400724701 (ISBN)
19th Participatory Design Conference 2026, Vol. 3: Workshops, Situated Actions, and PDC Places, PDC 2026
Milan, Italy,
Milan, Italy,
Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)
Design
DOI
10.1145/3789493.3797320