Petra Lilja: Public defence of doctoral thesis

This dissertation, Mineral Matterings: Diffractive Practices of Design makes design perceptible as a source of concern, part of the extractivist logic. Through two projects, “Walking with Minerals” and “Critical Clay,” Lilja has invited participants to encounter mineral matter in more nuanced ways rather than just as passive resources to be exploited. Drawing from the feminist posthumanities, geology, and agential realism, Lilja introduces "diffractive practices of design"—a relational approach examining mineral matter and materials’ complex entanglements that extend beyond human-centered perspectives.

Petra Lilja has been a doctoral student at Konstfack and KTH 2019-2024. Coming from an industrial design education, her practice sits in the borderlands of art, craft and technology, with a focus on exploring design’s role in reconfiguring ethical and material relationships in shared processes of more-than-human world-making.

Online: konstfack-se.zoom.us/j/63502413639

FACULTY OPPONENT
Prof. Helen Pritchard – FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland

EXAMINING COMMITTEE
Prof. Nicolas Cheng – Akademie der Bildenden Künste München

Dr. Lena Håkansson – Independent researcher

Dr. Simon Ceder – Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design

Dr. Janna Holmstedt – National Historical Museums in Sweden, and The Posthumanities Hub, Linköping University

SUPERVISORS
Martín Ávila – Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design

Meike Schalk – KTH, Royal Institute of Technology

Ola Ståhl – Linnaeus University

CHAIR
Catharina Gabrielsson – KTH, Royal Institute of Technology

CONTACT PERSON
Mat Gregory, mathew.gregory@konstfack.se

Welcome!