Lecture Frederick van Amstel
Dr. Frederick (Fred) van Amstel is Assistant Professor of Service Design and Experience Design at the Industrial Design Academic Department at UTFPR. On Monday April 27th he joins us for a lecture.
On this day we also have a lecture by Hüyla Ertas. Both speakers interested in transforming realities through design: Frederick van Amstel explores prospective design and Hulya Ertas will talk about curating.
You can choose to join the whole day or only attend certain lectures and workshops.
Prospecting alter/native realities
Reality is so hard to change these days and, at the same time, so easy to deny, that design research is increasingly about virtual, augmented, mixed, and speculated realities. Prospective design is a research program born in UTFPR, Brazil, Global South, that speculates on reality as part of a larger move of transforming reality. Building upon critical pedagogy, Theater of the Oppressed, and other radical approaches, prospective design aims at changing reality by intervening in the critical infra and metastructures of society. By articulating the espetacular with the banal at multiple levels of reality, prospective design opens up a new design space for engaging with social movements, government, companies, and other collective bodies interested in changing reality.
About Frederick van Amstel
Dr. Frederick (Fred) van Amstel (he/him/his) is Assistant Professor of Service Design and Experience Design at the Industrial Design Academic Department at UTFPR. From 2023 to 2025, he was a tenured Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Design & Visual Communications (MXD) Master of Fine Arts at the University of Florida, USA. The institutionalization of techno-fascism in the United States of America forced Dr. Van Amstel to prematurely end his tenure and flee back to Brazil, where he grew up. At UTFPR, the first Brazilian technical university, he co-founded the Design & Oppression network and its local hub, the Laboratory of Design against Oppression (LADO). He also played a pivotal role in establishing UTFPR’s graduate program in Prospective Design, the first of its kind in the nation. From this position, Dr. Van Amstel serves as co-editor of Design Issues and sits on the editorial board of CoDesign, two of the most prestigious journals in design research.
Date and location:
- Monday April 27nd 2026
- Begijnhof Hasselt, Kapittelzaal (house #2 / 1.4)
- 13h00 - 14h30
Registration
Please register via this form.
For PhD students and postdocs, we would like to draw your attention to the cancellation and no-show policy of UHasselt