With this interview, we present the concluding edition of the KABK Lectorate Design’s research methods series. KABK warmly thanks departing lector Alice Twemlow for her many contributions to shaping the role of artistic research.
Counter-Mapping as a research method
In this fourth edition of “A Research Method in Art and Design”, the KABK Design Lectorate turns its attention to counter-mapping as an artistic research practice. Following the footsteps of previous editions, which explored walking, touching, and listening, this interview examines how counter-mapping can serve as a tool to archive and present geo-related information.
For this interview, Design Lector Alice Twemlow spoke with Sophie ‘Soph’ Dyer, a designer, researcher, educator, and one half of the feminist collective Open-Weather. In their practice, Soph combines participatory and investigative methods to create digital archives, tools, evidentiary models, maps, and speculative fiction.
Alice and Soph met at the National Archives in The Hague, where nearly a thousand years of Dutch history are preserved across 142 kilometres of documents and 800 terabytes of digital files.
Sophie ‘Soph’ Dyer is a designer, educator, and one half of the feminist collective, Open-Weather. Their work explores feminist and anticolonial approaches to the weather and climate, and social justice issues more broadly. Soph combines participatory and investigative methods to create digital archives and tools, evidentiary models and maps, speculative fiction and workshops. As Open-Weather, they co-created accessible resources for DIY satellite imagery reception and decoding. Until 2023, Soph was part of Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab, where they led the organisation’s crowdsourcing initiative to create the first city-wide map of surveillance cameras in New York City, which then was used to sue the NYPD.
Credits video
Presented by Design Lectorate, Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague
Sophie Dyer Designer / Researcher In conversation with Alice Twemlow, KABK Design Lector
Initiative Niels Schrader and Alice Twemlow
Art Direction Niels Schrader
Director of Photography Roel Backaert
Camera and Editing Yannick van de Graaf
Music Laura Dillettante
