16^th 4T DESIGN AND DESIGN HISTORY SYMPOSIUM 

On the Move: Objects/Images/Spaces

6-7 November 2023

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 4T Design and Design History Society invites participants to submit abstracts for its 2025 symposium titled "On the Move: Objects/Images/Spaces". This symposium seeks to explore how objects, images, and spaces, whose movement have a profound implication both for the multiple histories and contemporary practices of design, migrate and transform across cultures, times, and borders. These include the interaction of local communities and practices with the design movements and styles that travel across borders; the role that the exchange of ideas and expertise plays in the transformation of contemporary design practices; the impact of the displacement of people and cultures on the (re)production and reception of design; and finally, the role of designers in refugee contexts and diasporic communities. By fostering creative discussion among a diverse community of scholars, practitioners, and students, this symposium aims to create a space for critical engagement with the mobility of design—objects in motion, images that move, and spaces in transition—across various domains.

Symposium Themes and Topics:
We welcome submissions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Objects in Motion: The migration and transformation of material culture—how objects travel across space and time throughout their “object biographies” and how they are reinterpreted and adopted in new contexts; The study of objects as markers of shifting cultural, social, political, and economic landscapes; how design objects have been transformed and reappropriated in new contexts; and how these objects reflect the complexities of migration histories and the mobility of materials, techniques, and meanings.

• Images on the Move: The relentless circulation of images, from print media to virtual platforms, and the ways in which visual culture adapts and evolves; the role of images in shaping identities, consumer practices, and collective memory; and how images are recontextualized and reinterpreted in different settings while they migrate.

• Spaces in Transition: The movement of spatial concepts across different geographical, ecological, and material contexts; how the design of spaces—discursive, cultural, urban, architectural, domestic, or personal—responds to the fluidity of boundaries between physical and virtual realms; the flow of spatial practices across various geographical and environmental landscapes; digital platforms, Internet activism, and alternative spatial practices.

Papers are invited to problematize how objects, images, and spaces have been and are on the move through the agency of design, design works, and designers in diverse contexts and time periods. Submissions grounded in specific theoretical positions are strongly encouraged.  

The papers for the 16th 4T Symposium are invited to submit a title and an extended abstract of 800-1000 words, including a critical question/argument, theoretical/conceptual framework, and research method, through CMT by the deadline of 30 May 2025. The symposium language is English; therefore all abstracts, presentations, and papers are expected to be in English. The full papers presented at the symposium will take place in a proceedings book traditionally published by the 4T Society. 

 

Please click here for CMT submissions ⬈

 

 

IMPORTANT DATES

Deadline for Extended Abstracts	30 May 2025
Notification of Acceptance	To be announced
Early Bird Registration	To be announced
Regular Registration	To be announced
Announcement of Symposium Program	To be announced
Symposium	6-7 October 2025

 

For any further information, send an email to symposium@4t.org.tr

 

Please click here to download Call For Papers