Stitching participations in a touch-oriented participatory design practice
Ana Maria Copetti Maccagnan, Guilherme Englert Corrêa Meyer · 2022
Despite the importance of Participatory Design literature concerned with democracy as a process of engaging through what arises from or in response to problems experienced in the situation, we identify the need to design alternative ontologies and relational modes, which enable us to listen to other urgencies. This paper proposes an experiential and felt shift stance by invoking touch and sentient aspects to craft new understandings of participation within a design process. We trust that proposing slowing down enables us to cultivate a distinct sensibility, hesitating to construct a common and detached world. This paper reports on episodes of an experimental prototyping practice carried out through an embroidery group. The explorations of this case lead us to nurture the relationship between mind, body, and world, introducing the idea of a touch-oriented participatory design (TOPD) when considering participation attentive to various rhythms, making democracy through storytelling and an ethos of care.