Andrea Botero Cabrera

Andrea Botero Cabrera

Professor (Associate Professor)
Department of Design
Research Fellow
Department of Design

My work engages with the possibilities, and contradictions of participating in the creation of environments, tools and media that afford more relational and caring interactions among, and between people and their environment. This I have done in multiple domains ranging from everyday life to scientific endeavors. My design works explore technologies, services, media formats and genres for collectives and communities. Through my research I aim to understand how collectives come to understand the design spaces available to them and how designers could infrastructure those spaces better to support livable futures for communities and the environment.

Since August 2022 I am Associate Professor (New Frontiers of Design) at the Department of Design where I currently lead INUSE research group. Between fall 2019 and spring 2024 I am working on a  project exploring distributed, collaborative and experimental arrangements for innovation and design otherwise (Studio|Lab|Forest), with generous funding from the Research Council of Finland (Suomen Akatemia).

Teaching:

MUO-E8041  Collaborative and participatory techniques for design - Creative sustainability MA program (Fall) at the Department of Design

MUO-E0020 Intro to MA studies - for all MA students of the Department of Design (Together with Prof Pirjo Kääriainen and Prof Marco Steimberg)

I advice MA and DA students on a continous basis.

BACKGROUND

As a design practitioner I have worked in several design consultancies and in multiple R&D projects as user interfase, interaction designer and design researcher. I do occasional design consultancy gigs.

I have a BA in Industrial Design from Universidad Nacional de Colombia (COL) and an MA in Product and Strategic Design from Aalto (FIN). I obtained my Doctor of Arts degree in New Media also from Aalto and worked afterwards as post-doc at the department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Oulu (FIN).

In addition, I am adjunct professor (dosenti) at the Faculty of Architecture and Design of Universidad de los Andes, in Bogotá (COL) and Guest Professor at the Centre for Sustainable and Digital Transformation, at Aalborg University (DK).

I am a conspirator at a collective design research studio called Suo&co, that I convene with 3 other wonderful friends. In my spare time I collaborate with Fundación Karisma, a Colombian NGO seeking to respond to human rights issues in the context of digital technologies and social innovation dynamics. I do design and multigenerational diversity activism through Ninho ry, a Finnish NGO creating a more diverse and plurilingual children's culture in Finland.

Full researcher profile
https://research.aalto.fi/...

Contact information

Areas of expertise

Collaborative design, co-design, Social innovation, New media, Design, Interaction design, Transformation, Social change, Collective Action, Participatory design, 6132 Visual arts and design, 520 Other social sciences, Industrial design, Science studies

Research groups

  • Inuse

Publications

Living with Feral Ecologies (artist)

Andrea Botero, Markéta Dolejšová, Jaz Hee jeong Choi 2023

Open Forest

Andrea Botero, Markéta Dolejšová, Jaz Hee-jeong Choi 2023 CreaTures Co-Laboratory Catalogue

Scalar trajectories in design: The case of DIY cloth face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic

Andrea Botero, Joanna Saad-Sulonen 2023 Artifact: Journal of Design Practice

Weaving the Feral – A Drift

Andrea Botero, Markéta Dolejšová, Jaz Hee jeong Choi 2023

Pabellón ARQDIS 2023 / Permanent exhibition

Alexandra Cuarán Jamioy, Andrea Botero, Eliana Sánchez-Aldana, Susana Patricia Chicunque Agreda 2023

Tejemanejes de la Creación-Investigación en el Tšombiach (Fajas tejidas del pueblo Kamëntsa Biya)

Alexandra Cuarán Jamioy, Susana Patricia Chicunque Agreda, Andrea Botero, Eliana Sánchez-Aldana 2023 Investigación+creación: Reflexiones y prácticas desde las Autonomías, Territoriales, Creativas y Tecnológicas

Open Forest: Walking-with Feral Stories, Creatures, Data

Markéta Dolejšová, Andrea Botero, Jaz Hee jeong Choi 2023 Proceedings of 21st European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work

The Ecological Underpinnings and Future Contributions of (E)CSCW

Ann Light, Chiara Rossitto, Airi Lampinen, Andrea Botero 2023 Proceedings of the 21st European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: The International Venue on Practice-centred Computing on the Design of Cooperation Technologies - Panel

Before Repairing : Pausing and Knotting Discomfort

Tania Pérez-Bustos, Andrea Botero 2023 Diseña

Open Forest at PDC22: Embracing Cosmologies exhibition

Andrea Botero, Markéta Dolejšová, Jaz Hee jeong Choi 2022