We are all old: Decentralising visions
Hayley Ho, Elsa Kosmack Vaara · Nordic design research conference · 2025
This paper seeks to understand how a mixed methodology of speculation, design practices, and artistic practices can help design researchers understand how people of different ages and backgrounds may distribute their visions about being old. Our overall motivation for the research is that countries in the world are struggling to shape good societies while the pace of population aging is accelerating faster than in the past. The world’s problems are often perceived as complex, leading some to lose faith in their ability to effect change. Every person is a piece of the larger puzzle, and we argue that when individuals build relationships with their future selves, they are empowered to make changes in the present to shape a desirable future. By prototyping a meal setting as a vehicle for speculation, we have learnt about the challenges of our approach.