Niek Kosten

Revisiting Vernacular Design in Critically Opening up Societal Issues

This Ph.D. research revisits vernacular design’s role in critically opening up societal issues. These situated graphic practices critically engage with political issues and aim to connect closely to a context by collaborating with its actors. As an integral part of everyday life, vernacular design carries rich contextual information about practices, dynamics, values, methods, goals, and struggles. It offers a valuable space for the articulation of, interaction with, and reflection on the issues inherent to a specific context. However, this research rethinks the existing vernacular design paradigm as common connotations prove too limited when connected with real-world complex entanglements and when placed within the broader context of a hybrid and plural society. Therefore, the concept of hypervernacular design is proposed as a relational approach to better represent vernacular’s interrelation with many cultural, social, economic, environmental, and political levels. This notion takes an inclusive and critical position on what we consider vernacular, which actors we include, and how we collaborate.

The doctoral research in the arts is set up around three case studies that generated spaces for practice-based inquiry. Fanlab, De Eensdagspartij, and Not In My Backyard! investigated the capacities of vernacular graphic design in diverse and changing contexts. Insights from their analysis offer perspectives for a more open reinterpretation of vernacular design and opportunities for designing critical artifacts in these collaborative practices.
				
— Defended in 2023.
— The thesis is currently under embargo.
🔗 https://research.kuleuven.be/portal/en/project/3H160330