Dirk de Waal

Dirk de Waal is a South African–Canadian with a background in design education, sustainability, curation, experience design, media and live events production.

His pedagogical practice takes an activist, sustainable, values-led approach, unpinned by a student-focused, collaborative, decolonized, and co-curricular path to learning. He lectures in the areas of Live Event and Experience Design, Futures Studies, Sustainability, Events Promotion, and Systems Thinking and mentors senior students as they develop their thesis projects.

He is currently pursuing his PhD in Media and Design Innovation at The Creative School. Building on his Master’s research in DIY and alternative design practices, sustainability, and foresight, Dirk’s inquiry stems from the urgent need to dismantle the colonial legacies embedded in design practices. He critiques the neoliberal ideologies of pedagogy and their relationship to capitalism, colonialism, and the neglect of alternative epistemologies, axiologies, and ontologies.

His inquiry aims to examine design praxes, innovation, and design pedagogy through a decolonial, decentred, degrowth design-for-exnovation lens. The work seeks to offer pathways that redistribute agency and power, challenge the growth mentality, advocate for ecological balance, and prioritize the well-being of all sentient beings.