With the academic year 2015-16, the Master in Eco-Social Design started at the Free University of Bolzano. This beginning occurred after a bumpy yet enriching course of preparations that included the first By Design or by Disaster Conference in 2013. The conference kicked off our series of annual events, and provided us the opportunity to connect with other transformation-engaged actors locally and trans-locally, including several other practice-oriented degree programmes focusing on socio-ecological transformation (Transformation Design, Social Design, Transformation Studies, Social Design or similar study courses, including likewise engaged programs coming from art, architecture, social work and innovation). We added an asterisk after design* to include all such programs and practitioners. In these overwhelming times of crisis, conflict and collapse, the urgency for joining forces to support each other, to reflect, learn, strategize and act together becomes even greater. In 2026 By Design and by Disaster takes place at BASIS Vinschgau-Venosta from 21 to 23 of May.
It’s time to reflect: What has worked and is promising for the future?
»Preguntando caminamos«
Principle of the Zapatista movement
t is time to ask pressing questions and to collaborate on answers: How to respond to the turn to the far-right and other authoritarian tendencies? What to do in the light of probable collapse scenarios and ongoing conflicts, crises and catastrophes? What counters the disempowering feelings of delusion and political depression? How to co-create collective empowerment, mutual care and nourish movements? How to prepare (for) social tipping points and be prepared (for) opening windows of opportunities? How to create trans-local and global solidarity in movements (joint struggles) and in re/production (along supply chains)? Who are our partners and allies? How to build upon and interconnect what and who is already there, to gain overarching traction? Why has our practice been defined the way it has, and how must we change it? What is our history, and what should be our future? What have we relied on that we no longer can?
With these and other traversal questions, we propose three tracks plus one for open space and free time.
What can and needs to be done now?
Learning and Teaching (Track 1)
Keywords: transformative pedagogies and research, emancipatory teaching/learning in state institutions?, free university?!, self-organised peer pedagogies, radical pedagogies, political education, learning in movement(s), …
Practices and Projects (Track 2)
Keywords: niches and cracks, spaces of other logics, enabling continuity, who/what is missing?, critical reflections, inclusion across class, reach beyond the bubble, peer-governance, commoning, care, somatic activism, regenerative practices, poetics, athletics, magic, …
Strategies and Structures (Track 3)
Keywords: Mutual support structures, connecting organizations / alliances / unions, communities of practice, common and distributed infrastructures, ecosystems of commons / solidary and circular economies, transpersonal commoning, … strategies and theories of transformation, power-with, collective empowerment, leverage points, commons-public partnerships, radical reforms, historical reflections, expropriation and appropriation, prepare and be prepared for opportunities ~ kairos! …
Open Space and Free Time
During DDcon26 we reserve one slot of the two core conference days for tackling emergent topics, questions, itchiness and new inspirations. Here participants will have space to offer interactive sessions, open discussion and everything that matters. Plus a round of sharing.
The third day, Saturday, is for extravagant activities such as excursions, walking workshops, visiting local actors, …
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“… preparing [for] opportunities that are not currently on the agenda.”
Sentence taken from Neupert-Doppler’s book “Grasping the opportunity. A political philosophy of Kairós” (2019) ~ Slightly modified by putting brackets around [for] to express that we not only need to recognize and grasp opportunities when they show up, but also prepare the conditions which make them more likely to emerge.
Image based on an artwork by Annika Tretter of the course of Peter Senoner IG: @AnnikaEileenTretter