Joana Pestana (1986) is a designer, educator, and researcher. She is a PhD candidate in Digital Media and a guest assistant at FBAUP, having previously taught at the Universidade Católica do Porto and Kingston School of Art, among others. She holds a master’s degree in Visual Communication from the Royal College of Art. Since 2012, she has worked as an independent designer, developing visual identities, exhibition, editorial, and web projects for cultural institutions such as MAAT, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion, and Galeria Municipal do Porto. Since 2016, she has independently and collaboratively developed projects aimed at critical reflection on digital technology monopolies and human-non-human dialogues, highlighting the (co-)creation of exhibitions and workshops such as Eden X (Jardins Efémeros, 2022; Porto Design Biennale, 2023), Omniscience: Strategies of Fracture and Escape (Fórum da Maia, 2021), Scrolling the Arcane (Planetário do Porto, 2020), and Critical-GPS (Royal College of Art, 2018).

Thesis title
Designing with the more-than-human: methods and digital experiences of mediation and dialogue with other intelligences

FCT reference
2024.04476.BD

Abstract
Focusing on design practices that employ digital technologies to represent the more-than-human world, this work will encompass two studies. The first is an archive of more-than-human communication design practices, methods and tools, the second, the development of the project Eden X, involving the experimentation of methods to design and represent the diversity inherent to more-than-human dialogues.

Supervision
Miguel Carvalhais (supervisor) and Nuno Jardim Nunes (co-supervisor)

More info

• B21A-ABE8-4453
• 0000-0002-4456-9894
• www.joanapestana.com