Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall

Dean of the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design University

Bio

Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall is Dean of the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto, the first Black person to hold such a post in the world. Her work has been featured in Print magazine, Fast Company, AIGA's Eye on Design, and Design Observer, among other venues. She was awarded the Sir Misha Black Medal in 2022.

Research Topic

From the excesses of world expositions to myths of better living through technology, modernist design, in its European-based guises, has excluded and oppressed the very people whose lands and lives it reshaped. Dori Tunstall's Decolonizing Design first asks how modernist design has encompassed and advanced the harmful project of colonization—then shows how design might address these harms by recentering its theory and practice in global Indigenous cultures and histories.

A leading figure in the movement to decolonize design, Dori uses hard-hitting real-life examples and case studies drawn from over fifteen years of working to transform institutions to better reflect the lived experiences of Indigenous, Black, and People of Color communities. Her book is at once enlightening, inspiring, and practical, interweaving her lived experiences with extensive research to show what decolonizing design means, how it heals, and how to practice it in our institutions today.

Events

Decolonizing Design

Public Program

Mar 3, 2023