Social Practice → Speculative Design and Abolitionist Praxis
Speculative Design As Abolitionist Praxis
2025
Part instructional guide, part research, part workshop, this project explores the applications of speculative design frameworks in abolitionist organizing. Drawing inspiration from the writings of Mariame Kaba, Emile DeWeaver, and Saidiya Hartman, I connect the concept of the abolitionist imaginary with the practice of designing for speculative futures.
Through this work, I seek to provide organizers with tools for imagining new worlds, as well as develop a curriculum that facilitates radical and joyful imagination for those new to the abolitionist movement.
Edition Size
35
Format
100mm x 150mm
Materials
French Speckletone cover, 70 lb text
Method
Risograph Kelly Green
The first workshop was held in March of 2025 at Firestorm Coop in Asheville, North Carolina. Facilitated over 2-hours, the workshop sought to equip participants with basic vocabularies and skills for zine-making, as well as an introductory framework to speculative design. After introducing these topics, participants worked collectively to identify a speculative future and then draw/collage/design artifacts and experiences that would exist within it.
During this workshop, roughly 13 people participated and shared conversations on policing, fascism, and abolitionist horizons. We began our creation with the question, what would Asheville look like without prisons or police?
We identified a speculative future in 2500 where community centers have populated across Asheville, landlords have begun to face intensified public shame, and the political climate has grown increasingly authoritarian. Within this reality, people created wildly.
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With further adaptation, I hope to expand this workshop to broader communities, particularly those currently living the day-to-day reality of incarceration. To build an abolitionist future, we must be willing to first imagine it. Through this work, I hope to do just that, messily, imperfectly, and collectively.
For more information, you can read about my research and process here.