DGTF Conference 2026: Shifting Regimes, Changing Orders
Design & Democracy: Changing Orders, shifting Regimes
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Ecological urgency, technological acceleration, and political fragmentation destabilize the conditions under which democracy and design unfold. The conference interrogates their entangled trajectories amid shifting normative frameworks and changing regimes of power. It conceives design as a site of democratic contestation and democracy as a designed order, foregrounding their reciprocal capacity to structure imaginaries, practices, and institutions.
As democratic institutions face populist, technocratic, and post-political pressures, design becomes a crucial site of both contestation and possibility. We ask: How do design discourses and practices respond to and co-shape emerging configurations of power, participation, and collective life? What regimes of sense-making, visibility, or action does design enable—or foreclose? How might design contribute to rethinking democratic agency, inclusion, and accountability amid collapsing certainties?
This call invites contributions that critically examine design’s intersection with democratic systems under pressure: from contested infrastructures and algorithmic governance to citizen-led co-creation and institutional reconfiguration. Through interdisciplinary dialogue and practice-based inquiry, the conference aims to surface approaches and questions that push beyond normative assumptions, foregrounding design as mediator, amplifier, or disruptor within changing democratic landscapes.
25.6.
09:00–18:00
Exhibition
09:30
Welcome
10:00
Entanglements between Design and Digital Participation
Conversational Keynote with:
Alê Costa Barbosa, Gregorio Santamaria, Katharina Winkler and Renata Avila
11:00
Slot 1
Paper Track 1: Digitality & Democracy
Helga Schmid; Maher Akraa-Meyer; Romi Mikulinsky, Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler; Fernando Obieta
Paper Track 2: Spaces of Assembly as Arenas of Constructive Conflict
Josefin Böttiger; Merle Ibach; Christian Djeffal; Martina Fineder, Christa Liedtke, Katja Kremser, Felix Fastenrath
Paper Track 3: Democratizing Institutions of Civic Life
Nabajit Deka, Priyanki Choudhury; Luca Ganz; Johanna Mehl; Arianna Bellantuono; Salvatore Zingale
Workshops:
Tobias Witt; Anannya Bhowmik Paul
12:30
Lunch Break
14:00
Slot 2
Paper Track 1: Intersectional Feminism and Ecological Futures
Clara Sofia Fernández Rodriguez; Susanne Ritzmann, Malene Saalmann; Ines Sahtout; Stefan Schwabe, Bettina Schwalm
Paper Track 2: Spaces of Assembly as Arenas of Constructive Conflict
Ágnes Jekli, Borbála Marosán; Frank Lang, Winston Hampel; Jule Helene Leinpinsel, Frederik Kampe, Philipp Cartier; Hannah Strothmann
Paper Track 3: Democratizing Institutions of Civic Life
Poorvi Garag; David Voss; Svenja Bickert-Appleby
Workshops:
Anton Rusch; Katalin Hausel, Niki Wiese
15:30
Coffee Break
16:00
Slot 3
Paper Track 1: Spaces of Assembly as Arenas of Constructive Conflict
Philipp Cartier, Frederik Kampe, Sven T. Siefken; Yixuan Wang; Ines Sahtout; Henrietta Fiáth; Victor Udoewa
Paper Track 2: Democratizing Institutions of Civic Life
Jorge Sanchez-Jofras, Katalina Silva; Felix Kosok; Regina Hanke, Piotr Swiatek; Anna Dill, Sandra Groll
Paper Track 3: Intersectional Feminism and Ecological Futures
Vivien Tauchmann, İzel Karaca; Sarah Held; Andrea Augsten, Johanna Treidl, Paula Süveges; Jona Möller
Design Publiziert
Lynn Harles, Merle Ibach
Workshops:
Alina Kadlubsky; Pauline Sophie Plenar
17:30
Break
18:00
Design Education, Intersectional Feminism and Institutional Transformation
Conversational Keynote with:
Bianca Kóczán, Ramon Tejada and Anna Unterstab
19:00
Aperó & Party
Join us on the terrace for drinks, light food, and music.
26.6.
10:00–16:00
Exhibition
10:00
Public Spaces as Arenas of Constructive Conflict
Conversational Keynote with:
Gustav Nielsen, Ulrike Steven and Ina Metzner
11:00
Slot 4
Paper Track 1: Democracy and Design Education Institutions
Clara Löffler, Stephan Rether; Janka Csernák; Ines Sahtout; Henrietta Fiáth; Victor Udoewa; Andrea Augsten, Sven Quadflieg, Florian Sametinger; Jonathan Ventura, Galit Shvo, Neil Nenner, Avihai Mizrahi
Paper Track 2: Democratizing Institutions of Civic Life (& Digitally and Democracy)
Antonia Lembcke; Maziar Rezai; Konstantin Haensch; Paul Heinicker
Paper Track 3: Democratizing Institutions of Civic Life
Nikita Narder; Szandra Tebbe, Marie Nadège Tsogo; Kai Berthold, Anke Riemer; Sarah Steffen
Workshops:
Julia Barashkov, Ben Drusinsky; Zainab Marvi
12:30
Lunch Break
14:00
Closing Panel
Bori Feher, Hagit Keysar; moderated by Andreas Unteidig & Bianca Herlo
15:00
Coffee Break
15:30
DGTF General Assembly
17:00
End
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Designtheorie und -forschung (DGTF) in collaboration with Forschungszentrum Normative Orders, Goethe University Frankfurt/M, Design Campus, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden x Design and Democracy Platform
