Andrea Botero Cabrera

My work engages with the possibilities, and contradictions of participating in design, and designing participation today. I am interested in what counts as design and what other practices for world making are there, and which ones we need to call into being. I have explored these issues in multiple domains ranging from everyday life to scientific endeavors. My design works explores the creation of environments, tools and media that afford more relational and caring interactions among, and between people, collectives and their environment. Through my research, I aim to understand how collectives (broadly speaking) come to understand the design spaces available to them and how designers could infrastructure those spaces better, especially looking to support livable futures. These work happens at the intersection of design practice, science and technology studies and participatory design and research.

I am Associate Professor (New Frontiers of Design) at the Department of Design where I currently lead INUSE research group. Currently 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 2024:

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

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

I advice / supervise 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 product owner, 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) where I also obtained my Doctor of Arts degree in New Media. I 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, Bogotá (COL) and Guest Professor at the Centre for Sustainable and Digital Transformation, Aalborg University (DK).

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