Åsa Ståhl

Teaching

At the Department of Design I mainly teach on BA-level, for example focusing on design methods of collaboration and public engagement, demonstration of critical reflections through writing as well as supervision of design projects and degree projects. I have planned, developed, research-anchored and coordinated modules and courses on all three years of the two BA:s Design + Change and Visual Communication + Change. My role includes to combine theory and practice. In addition, I have done coordination across programmes in the department as well as with the support functions at the university. I have predominantly taught the modules Economic and Ecological change, Social and Cultural change, +Change design projects in the course +Change. The course theme of Fair share of domestic surplus was a development into a/synchronous teaching with international colleagues. In the course Design + Futures, I have developed, taught and supervised the modules State of the Art and Independent Project. Across the semesters and programmes I have also worked with alumni and external collaborators to develop the BA-students’ preparedness for various kinds of careers.

I am a second supervisor to a PhD student in crafts at HDK-Valand, Gothenburg University and I have been a second supervisor to a PhD student  in technoscience at Blekinge Institute of Technology who successfully defended their thesis in 2020. 

I have developed and taught on PhD-courses in collaboration with design research colleagues from other universities such as Messy Matters at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Design and Care at the Department of Design at Linnaeus University and Socio-ecologically Just Design after Progress at Linköping University.

Since I first co-developed the course Experimental Radio Production at Malmö university in 2006 I have taught extensively in higher education. Over the years I have taught nationally and internationally in design educations and beyond as well as in informal lifelong learning situations. I speak about performativity in design processes and activities in a recording at Bauhaus Study Rooms 2023. In 2024 I taught an international group of more than 40 students ranging across BA, MA and PhD-level who came together in Florence at the European University for Well-Being, EUniWell, Blended Intensive Programme on "Education Toward a Sustainable Future" . My contribution was on "Knowing and Making Futures" and collaborative change-work for multispecies flourishing. 

Research

I work in trans- and postdisciplinary collaborations on prefigurative design practices, artefacts, aesthetics and imaginaries that concern socio-ecological challenges and just transformations.

As the principal investigator in the artistic research environment Design after Progress: Reimagining Design Histories and Futures I coordinate research colleagues at four different universities whilst also developing shared feminist leadership with my colleagues Li Jönsson and Kristina Lindström. Funded by the Swedish Research Council.

I am one of the researchers in Earth Logic Design, a research project that enacts a new, earth logic game plan for design. The project is part of InKuiS - Innovative Cultural Entrepreneurship in Collaborative Co-creative Research. Funded by the Kamprad Family Foundation for Entrepreneurship, Research & Charity. 

In the artistic research project Holding Surplus House I, as a principal investigator, coordinate research colleagues at two different universities. Funded by Formas, Public Art Agency Sweden, ArkDes, the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, and the Swedish National Heritage Board.

Me and my long-term collaborator and colleague Kristina Lindström started the Un/Making Studio as part of the artistic research project Un/Making Matters - maintenance, repair and composting and other ways of caring for that which has already been made. Funded by the Swedish Research Council.

I have conducted externally funded artistic research together with Kristina Lindström since 2006 when I was a junior researcher at the IT-research institute Interactive Institute. The first project was called [ordlekar]. The two of us later went on to do an awarded, joint collaborative thesis across two disciplines at Malmö university. 

Get in touch if you're interested in pursuing a postdoc related to my research! 

Commissions

I am a member of the research board at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Linnaeus University, a board member of the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment: Sustainable Health and I have been a member of the Leadership group at the Department of Design and the Programme Advisory Board of the Design + Change-programme. 

I am part of the advisory board of the Politics of Patents ERC project 2019-2024.

I do academic household work, for example by reviewing papers, chapters, book proposals and applications for journals, conferences, funding bodies and committees.