Designing for Democratic Engagement - events series 2021-22

We are very pleased to announce a new events series dedicated to Designing for Democratic Engagement. The most important and most urgent questions of today are also questions of democracy.

When we think about adaptation to climate change or decolonising institutions there are reasons to think that current forms of liberal representative democracy linked to the defined boundaries of nation states and expressed through delegation of authority to professionals will not suffice.

In this series – a collaboration between the Centre for Democratic Engagement and the Centre for Critical Studies in Museums Galleries and Heritage at the University of Leeds – we will explore how democratic engagement can be redesigned and reimagined.

Our events series will begin with renowned Professor Michael Saward who will speak to his most recent book Democratic Design. The talk will be followed the next day by a workshop exploring the implications of Michael Saward’s arguments for democratic design in museums, galleries and heritage. This will be followed a series of other events addressing some of our most urgent questions of today, such as climate change, through the angle of designing for democratic engagement.