Dr Paris Selinas

Participatory and Speculative Designer, Researcher, and Producer

I am a Bristol-based transdisciplinary designer and social researcher, holding a PhD from the Business School at the University of Bristol and an MSc in Design from Brunel University. I am interested in developing and disseminating participatory forms of design that help us collectively speculate on and prototype new objects, spaces, and relations towards common futures. I have experience in all facets of participation, from open innovation with the industry to cooperative design with employees in organizations. My work aims to amplify the voices of those less heard and provide common spaces for more diverse and just participation in the design of technological, urban, and educational futures. My PhD explored this in the research context of higher education, establishing a pluralistic community of cleaners, librarians, porters, and researchers that transgressed the boundaries between intellectual and manual university work, and shed light on the invisible reproductive labor that sustains the university.

My work intertwines theoretical perspectives from Aesthetic Theory, Science and Technology Studies, and Utopian Studies. I put these to practice through situated, somatic, and collaborative methods such as film, photography, drawing, collage, performance, comics, and speculative artefacts and fictions. Through the collaborative production and consumption of art, the hope is that we imagine and experience little utopian realities within and beyond our current predicament.

Before joining the University of Bristol, I was a research associate at the Royal College of Art, working on participatory design programs for food and textiles innovation. I have also collaborated with industry and universities such as Goldsmiths, Lancaster, and Brunel as a designer, producer, and facilitator of future scenarios, public workshops, and interactive experiences for diverse audiences. My design work spans board and video games, illustrations, books, and websites. You may have encountered some of it at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal College of Art, the Science Gallery, Ars Electronica, and elsewhere. I am also part of the creative collective Xanontas Xrono (Loosing Time), initiated by Maro Pantazidou. The collective translates our academic research into podcasts and other accessible mediums for the greek context.