Name: Design Stories Warsaw | Conference
Start: 2025-11-20T10:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-11-21T15:15:00+01:00
Location: Uniwersytet SWPS w Warszawie

About the Conference
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Design Stories is part of the Looking Through Objects project, which explores women’s contributions to change through design and creative practices. The project includes a touring exhibition, lecture series, talks, and interviews organized in different locations across Poland, the UK, Belgium, and the Baltics.
The Design Stories Warsaw conference examines the practices of responsibility in design through five thematic panels. Topics include social challenges, material storytelling, collecting, and pedagogy. Together, the panels highlight how women designers shape cultural memory, foster collaboration, and reimagine design as a vehicle for storytelling, ethical reflection, and social transformation.
Thematic Panels
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↪︎ Panel 1: Networks of Responsibility
Design operates within webs of responsibility — to communities, environments, and future generations. This panel explores how designers use networks as platforms for activism, advocacy, and ethical action. From grassroots initiatives to global campaigns, the speakers will reflect on how communication tools, design methods, and collective practices can shift cultural and political narratives. What are the ethical limits of design activism? How can practitioners balance visibility and responsibility without reproducing systems of exclusion or exploitation?
↪︎ Panel 2: Searching for Solutions
Design is often positioned as a discipline of problem-solving. But whose problems are we solving — and how? This panel considers how practitioners frame social, personal, and civilizational challenges in their work. Moving beyond surface-level fixes, the conversation will address the tension between pragmatic solutions and deeper systemic transformation. Are designers mediators between individual needs and collective futures, or does this responsibility extend beyond the discipline itself?
↪︎ Panel 3: Narratives in Making
Making is more than a process — it is a form of narrative. This panel examines how designers use material practices to tell stories, build collaborations, and reimagine tradition. Whether through ceramics, product design, or transnational practices, the speakers will share how material choices communicate values, histories, and futures. How does the act of making become a dialogue between people, places, and resources?
↪︎ Panel 4: Curating Design Futures
Museums are powerful agents in shaping how design is valued, remembered, and taught. This panel explores the role of institutions in collecting, exhibiting, and educating through design. Speakers will reflect on curatorial strategies that foreground underrepresented voices, challenge canonical narratives, and expand what counts as “design.” How can museums keep pace with the urgency of contemporary issues while also serving as archives of the past?
↪︎ Panel 5: Pedagogies of Practice
Design education is not just about skills — it is about shaping ways of thinking, reflecting, and engaging with the world. This panel brings together practitioners who experiment with methods that bridge disciplines, from sound and textiles to AI, robotics, and craft. Their practices open questions about how design pedagogy can embrace uncertainty, hybridity, and collaboration with more-than-human intelligences. What pedagogical models are needed to prepare future designers for the challenges of a rapidly transforming world?

📅 Date: November 20–21, 2025
📌 Location: School of Form, SWPS University in Warsaw (S304)
👉 Sign up: https://bit.ly/3JhB0Ef
Panelists
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↪︎ Izabela Bołoz is a designer with 12 years of experience in design education, teaching in the Netherlands and Poland. As a Ph.D. candidate at SWPS University, she researches how interactive urban installations activate public space and foster intergenerational play. Bołoz combines research, practice, and social engagement. She collaborates internationally with public institutions on projects that engage diverse user groups and strengthen place-based identity.
↪︎ Sara Boś is a designer specializing in robotic fabrication processes supported by parametric design, working at the intersection of craft and technology. She is a graduate of the School of Form at SWPS University and gained professional experience at the Oskar Zięta studio. Since 2020, she has led the Robotics and Digital Studio at the School of Form, developing experimental approaches to teaching robotics in design.
Julia Bujak

↪︎ Julia Bujak is a designer and researcher addressing social issues, including forced migration and systemic violence. Through textile art and research-based design, she investigates personal forms of socio-political engagement rooted in care and responsibility. She is a member of the textile collective texpol, which held its inaugural exhibition at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art.
↪︎ Maria Jeglińska-Adamczewska works across industrial design, exhibition design, and research. She believes research can trigger and generate new forms of design answers. After graduating from The École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL), she established her Office for Design & Research in 2012. Her clients include Ligne Roset and Kvadrat. She has curated exhibitions for the Łódź Design Festival and the London Design Biennale.
↪︎ Juliet Kinchin, Ph.D. is a design historian specializing in Central and Eastern Europe and a former curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She has organized numerous acquisitions and exhibitions, notably highlighting women's contributions to modern architecture and design. Her previous roles include curatorial positions at the V&A Museum and teaching at the University of Glasgow.
↪︎ Ewa Klekot, Ph.D. / Associate Professor is a cultural anthropologist and professor at SWPS University. She combines social sciences with design and artistic projects. Her research focuses on the anthropology of making and related cognition modes — skills, embodied knowledge, materials, and processes. She also practices anthropological reflection on art, especially the social construction of folk art and heritagization through monuments and museum exhibits.
↪︎ Frédérique Krupa, Ph.D. is a UX designer, researcher, and director of the Digital Design Lab at L’École de design Nantes Atlantique. She holds a Ph.D. in Design from the Sorbonne. She bridges design, technology, and ethics. She co-founded the Platform for Interdisciplinary Innovation (P2I) to foster responsible and inclusive approaches to artificial intelligence.
↪︎ Alicja Patanowska, Ph.D. is a visual artist and potter. She graduated from the Royal College of Art and holds a Ph.D. in Arts. Her research-driven practice focuses on hands-on engagement with materials, exploring their narratives through ecology, transformation, and care. Direct experience with clay is fundamental to her work. Her recent installation, The Ripple Effect, was commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).
↪︎ Professor Jane Pavitt is a professor, design historian, curator, and Director of Research, Knowledge Exchange, and Innovation at the University for the Creative Arts, UK. Her career includes roles at the V&A Museum, the Royal College of Art, and the Zaha Hadid Foundation. Her exhibitions include Cold War Modern: Design 1945–70, Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990, and Superstructures: The New Architecture 1970–1990.

↪︎ Justyna Popławska is a designer and maker based in Copenhagen. Her material-driven practice sits at the intersection of applied art and sculpture. She focuses on glass and its transformative potential, creating lighting, furniture, and objects characterized by intricate surfaces and a painterly sense of color. Her work explores the expressive possibilities of materials grounded in a functional sensibility.
↪︎ Agnieszka Rayss, Ph.D. is a photographer, visual artist, lecturer, and co-founder of the Sputnik Photos collective. Her work explores myths, history, and the post-Soviet heritage of Central and Eastern Europe. She graduated in art history and holds a Doctor of Arts. She teaches at the School of Form at SWPS University. Rayss is also the acclaimed author of several photo books, including From the Notes of a Collector and The Last Conversation with Academician Sakharov.
↪︎ Natalia Romik, Ph.D. is an architect, designer, artist, and political scientist. She holds a Ph.D. from the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL, where she researched the post-Jewish architecture of memory. Her work explores this theme through academic research, art, and architectural practice. She is a Dan David Prize laureate, co-curator of major exhibitions, and author of installations, including Hideouts. The Architecture of Survival.
↪︎ Monika Rosińska, Ph.D. holds a Ph.D. in sociology and works at the School of Form at SWPS University. She researches contemporary design practices and is the author of Utopias of Design: Between Affirmation and Critique of Modernity and Rethinking Use. She contributes to the field through scholarly and popular articles on design and serves as a co-curator for design exhibitions.
↪︎ Laura Selby is a sonic experience designer, artist, and researcher. She explores sonic contamination and biological networks. She uses listening-led methods across field recording, spatial sound, and interactive sculpture to foster deeper relational understanding. Her work, which emphasizes community collaboration and public engagement, has been presented internationally at Ars Electronica, the V&A, and Tate Modern.
↪︎ Professor Teal Triggs is a professor of graphic design at the Royal College of Art, known for her work as an educator, historian, and writer. Her research focuses on graphic design history, criticism, and research methods, including the current Trans-Atlantic Platform project Graphic Design Histories for Creative Dissent. She is also co-editor of Design Issues (MIT Press).
Organizers and Curators
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↪︎ Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka, Ph.D.
Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka is a design curator with a background in visual arts, interested in how local context influences design identities. She is also a columnist, event organizer, and jury member for design competitions. Agnieszka is the Dean of the Faculty of Design at SWPS University in Warsaw. Previously, she served as artistic director of the Łódź Design Festival and as the founding editor-in-chief of Elle Decoration Poland.
↪︎ Gian Luca Amadei, Ph.D.
Gian Luca Amadei is an architectural historian, researcher, and curator. His interests lie at the intersection of architectural history, urban planning, sociology, and cultural context. Gian Luca is an advocate of lifelong learning and a lecturer at the Royal College of Art in London. He is also the author of the books: Discovering Women in Polish Design (2009) and Victorian Cemeteries and the Suburbs of London (2022).
Program of the event
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Day 1 November 20 (Thursday)
● 10:00–10:30
Welcome coffee
● 10:30–10:45
Introductions
● 10:45–11:30
Looking Through Objects: project presentation

● 11:30–12:45
Panel 1: Networks of Responsibility
Women’s Design + Research Unit: Networks of Educational Activism
Professor Teal Triggs
On Weaving with Care. Regaining Agency Through Design Practice
Julia Bujak
The Ripple Effect
Alicja Patanowska, Ph.D.
● 12:45–13:00
Coffee break
● 13:00–14:15
Panel 2: Searching for Solutions
Invitations, Not Answers: Intergenerational Play for Place, Self, and Society
Izabela Bołoz
Memory of the Hiding Places
Natalia Romik
Designing Otherwise: Rethinking Responsibility in the Age of AI
Frédérique Krupa, Ph.D.
● 14:15–15:15
Lunch break
● 15:15–16:30
Panel 3: Narratives in Making
Material Resonance – Making as Dialogue
Justyna Popławska
Listening as Method: Mediating across Species, Scales, and Communities
Laura Selby
Design Narratives on Walls and the Flâneur
Maria Jeglińska-Adamczewska
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Day 2 November 21 (Friday)
● 10:00–10:30
Welcome coffee

● 10:30–11:15
Moderated panel discussion
Moderator: Oli Stratford, Disegno Journal
● 11:15–12:30
Panel 4: Curating Design Futures
Archival Absences
Professor Jane Pavitt
Excavating and Narrating New Design Stories at The Museum of Modern Art
Juliet Kinchin, Ph.D.
Phantoms, Archive, Museum
Agnieszka Rayss, Ph.D.
● 12:30–12:45
Coffee break

● 12:45–14:15
Panel 5: Pedagogies of Practice
Competences and Their Comprehension: On Discursification of Knowledge in Design Education
Ewa Klekot, Ph.D. / Associate Professor
Robotics Beyond the Factory: Teaching Design Through Process
Sara Boś
Designing with Time: Ornament as an Ethics of Waiting
Monika Rosińska, Ph.D.
● 14:15
Lunch
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Where & When
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Venue: School of Form, SWPS University, Chodakowska 19/31, Warsaw, Poland; room S304
Date: November 20–21, 2025
Hours:
Day 1 — 10:00–16:30 CET (UTC+1)
Day 2 — 10:00–15:15 CET (UTC+1)
Partners
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↪︎ Royal College of Art
↪︎ British Council
Collaboration and Context
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Design Stories Warsaw is a collaboration between the Royal College of Art and SWPS University, with the support of the British Council and in partnership with Disegno Journal. It is part of the British Council UK/Poland Cultural Season 2025.
In September 2024, we organized and produced a panel discussion at the Royal College of Art in collaboration with Disegno Journal. This event served as a springboard for the current conference. The podcast episode of that discussion is available online
All events organized as part of the Looking Through Objects project:
Design Stories — online seminar, November 25–26, 2021
Design Stories London — panel discussion at the Royal College of Art, September 19, 2024
Design Stories Brussels — panel discussion at the Design Museum Brussels, January 23, 2025
Design Stories Prague — panel discussion at the Designblok Festival, October 11, 2025
Exhibitions:
Looking Through Objects. Women in Contemporary Polish Design was hosted by the Estonian Museum of Applied Arts and Design, June 17–September 25, 2022.
Looking Through Objects. Women in Contemporary Polish Design was presented at NOMUS, branch of the National Museum in Gdańsk, May 12–August 8, 2023
These exhibitions were organized by the National Museum in Gdańsk. The project was co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the "Inspiring Culture" program.
Looking Through Objects. Women in Contemporary Polish Design in Design Museum Brussels (May 9–September 28, 2025) was organized as an accompanying event of the Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union and co-financed by the Polish Cultural Institute In Brussels.