This first Fabulation workshop “Concepts”, will take place in Umeå on the 8th and 9th of June 2023, and will be focused on conceptual work around fabulations. 30 people will participate. See full list of participants and their background here.

We are happy to have Assistant Prof. Noura Howell from Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) as a keynote speaker. Noura will give a talk on “Emotion AI and Fabulation: Seeking Biopolitical Futures of Respectful Care”.

On the first day we will unpack, both theoretically and through hands-on design activities, the notion of technology-assisted care in the Nordics. We will discuss and reflect on both positive and problematic aspects of care embedded in existing technologies, through the questions of “what have been predominant narratives of care that have driven technological progress in the nordics?” and “which futures should we care for?”

Through a series of collaborative activities, workshop participants will unpack and map out care trajectories in the Nordic expanding on topics that include, but are not limited to, bodies, Artic nature, Nordic whom?, Nordic civics, and Intergenerational care.

On the second day we will delve deeper into the notion of fabulation, aiming to understand what it is and how it could be used for imagining and extending care practices in the Nordic context, encouraging broader forms of participation in society, building stronger connections among citizens, and ultimately fostering more resilient futures. We will start by collaboratively reading existing fabulations to get a deeper understanding of this genre, and also read fabulations theory from the domains of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Finally, we will engage in an activity called “Arpentage” destroying and re-assembling workshop outcomes produced up to that stage, and developing new connections and narratives of existing material.

The map below shows practical information about the workshop and Umeå.