Lene Hald

About

My research is grounded in design anthropology, feminist technoscience, sociomaterial theory, and experiment-driven design research. I explore how experimental and designerly methods can function as forms of praxis that critically question existing systems while opening up possibilities for imagining and enacting more resilient and preferred futures. My work is particularly concerned with resilience, agency, and how design can support people and institutions in responding to uncertainty, crisis, and change. Through this work, I understand design not only as a way of creating artefacts, services, or solutions, but also as a relational practice of inquiry, transformation, and future-making. Drawing on design anthropology, I am particularly interested in the entanglements of people, materials, technologies, institutions, more-than-human actors, and temporalities, and in how these shape resilience, agency, and experiences of uncertainty, crisis, and grief at both personal and institutional levels. Across my research, visual and designerly methods serve as approaches to knowledge generation, critical inquiry, and dialogue, enabling new ways of engaging with complex societal and existential challenges. I am particularly interested in how film, photography, and other multimodal formats can both generate and communicate design research insights, while contributing to new approaches to research dissemination. I bring extensive experience in developing research capacity within design education, including building research environments, securing external funding, and integrating research with education and professional practice. I have contributed to research environments at KEA Research & Innovation, CODE, the Center for CoDesign, the Royal Danish Academy, Planet, Design School Kolding's Lab for Sustainability, Zealand Academy of Technologies and Business, and the Transdisciplinary Design programme at Parsons School of Design, where I was a Visiting Scholar.