Design in between worlds. Bioscience imaginaries and living relations of reindeer worlds

This doctoral thesis develops and proposes a new practice-based method in the field of design research called intercosmological design. Indigenous knowledges and technosciences are often perceived as entirely separate knowledge cultures, with one representing “nature” and the other science and technology. Challenging this notion, the study investigates how practice-based design research can help mitigate hierarchies between different cosmologies and their knowledge cultures.

The thesis is based on a long-term artistic collaboration in sub-Arctic Sápmi with a reindeer herder and his partner, following the nomadic way of life of his ancestors. Oral histories of living relations with the migratory path and reindeer form the core of the artistic research, materialized through co-authored films and design objects. Furthermore, the study establishes a dialogue with epigenetic scientists to investigate transgenerational kin relations that transcend molecular understandings of gene-based belonging.

This study develops co-designing imaginaries as an intercosmological method, drawing on speculative, feminist, and decolonial design approaches, anthropological inquiry, and insights from feminist and Indigenous science and technology studies. Speculation is conceptualized as a “gap” between worlds, where the tacit knowledge of reindeer cosmology and the practices of bioscience can coexist as equally factual, creating space for dialogue between knowledge cultures. Central to the method is a goal to collaborate in divergence, whereby cosmologies, their knowledge cultures and nature-technology relations retain their complexity rather than being reduced or translated into one another.

The practice-based artistic research results in collaborative imaginaries of postcolonial technoscience futures designed from the cosmology of reindeer worlds: the artworks materialize a future world in which transgenerational living relations with reindeer guide new forms of technoscientific practices and land politics. The study highlights how this methodological focus makes already existing holistic dimensions within epigenetics visible, while also positioning Indigenous knowledge — often characterized as “traditional” — within a trans-categorical context that can inform and reimagine different kinds of technoscience worlds.

Thesis available for public display 7 days prior to the defence at Aalto University's public display page. 

Thesis defender: Emilia Tikka
Opponent: Prof. Åsa Ståhl, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Custos: Prof. Julia Lohmann,Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Contact information: emilia.tikka@aalto.fi