Annelys De Vet successfully defended her practice-based doctoral research, Disarming Design: Politics of Participatory Practices. The study examined how design can sustain political agency and social engagement in challenging political and economic conditions through participatory and collaborative methods.

Her research documented three long-term projects: the Subjective Atlas series, the design label Disarming Design from Palestine, and the master’s programme Disarming Design at Sandberg Instituut. Each explored how design can amplify voices, mobilize communities, and create new forms of agency, emphasizing the sensory, material, and relational dimensions of participatory practice.

The dissertation and accompanying installation offer an intimate, critical insight into the politics, tensions, and possibilities of emancipatory design, asking how design might move beyond ‘solutions’ to become a practice of solidarity and collective agency.