︎Biography
Short bio: Kit Braybrooke is Professor and Head of the MA Transversal Design at Institute of Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM), HGK Basel Academy of Art and Design, FHNW Switzerland. With 15 years expertise applying feral digital methods in the field as a (post)digital anthropologist and designer, their practice asks how technological innovation can invite more-than-human communities (animal, vegetal, machine, algorithmic) to walk together across new terrains. This involves a close look into the systems, spaces, and power dynamics that build worlds - with field sites ranging from hacker cultures, feral technologies and transfeminist futures to experimental platforms like living labs, commons, temporary autonomous zones, open source networks and circular economies.
A bit more: Kit is a director of the critical design studio We&Us, which since 2020 has explored transfeminist co-creation for systems change across Europe and Asia. The studio’s weapons of choice include community mapping, co-design, creative practice, digital ethnography and gently dismantling. Kit has taught at places like RCA - Royal College of Art, King’s College London and Tongji University China, and their work has been featured by TATE Modern, Arafura Mexico, Uroboros Festival Prague, Portland Art Gallery, RTVE Spain, BBC News, British Council, Guardian, DAZED & Furtherfield. They hold a PhD in Media & Cultural Studies, University of Sussex for ‘Hacking the Museum’ and an MSc Digital Anthropology, University College London for ‘She-hackers’. They are also a street artist, a gatherer of wildish sounds, a long-distance cyclist, and a friend to all the world’s dogs.
︎ Contact
Want to work together? Feel very invited to get in touch with your wildest ideas. In the meantime, stay in touch via Kit’s Substack newsletter Wild Thickets, which sends polyphonic postcards from rewilding once a season. These days, Kit’s studio time is typically split between Basel, London, Vancouver and a spaceship in cyberspace. ︎
︎ Exhibitions & residencies
2024 [exhibited work]: Open Studio: Kunsttage Basel, Atelier Mondial, Basel, Switzerland.
2024 [exhibited work]: Gentle Dismantlings, ALL POWER ON EARTH COMES FROM THE SUN, Solarpunk Surf Club, Lexington, KY.
2023 [exhibited work]: Mesosanctuary, ARAFURA, Mexico City.
2022 [exhibited work]: Mesosanctuary, 4S/ECOSITE, Cholula, Mexico.
2021: New Scholars [creative fellow], Bristol & Bath Creative Ecologies R&D, Watershed, Bristol.
2020-21: Steering Committee [co-founder & chair], Art/ Tech/ Nature/ Culture.
2019-current: Care-full Design Lab [extended member], School of Design, RMIT, Melbourne.
2018, 2019: Living Research [delegate, making x circularity], British Council, Chengdu & Xi’an, China.
2015-19: Collaborative Doctoral Partnership [research residency], Digital Studio, TATE, London.
2018: Shùjùxiàn [exhibited work], Artists of the Open Web Exhibit, Mozfest, London.
2017: Space/Gather/Make [curator], Art:Work, Tate Modern, TATE, London.
2017: Haunted Random Forest Festival [curator], University of Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, UK.
2017: Machine Ghosts [exhibited work], Lighthouse Arts, Brighton.
2017: Parallel Universes [design research residency], Future Makers Series, British Museum, London.
2016: Spacehacker [exhibited work], MozEx Digital Arts, TATE + V&A, London.
2014: Art & Culture & Web [track curator], Mozilla Festival, London.
2013: Build & Teach the Web [track curator], Mozilla Festival, London.
2012: Open Knowledge Festival [co-founder and curator], Aalto University Media Factory, Helsinki.
2011: Open Government Data Camp [curator], Centrum Cyfrowe, Warsaw.
︎ Talks
Oct 2024: Servers, spores & seeds [panel chair], MESH Festival, Basel.
2023: ‘Teaching the algorithm to feed us’ [panel], Hack the Promise Festival.
2023: ‘The anatomy of a commoning-based predictive infrastructure’ [workshop], Critical Media Lab, IXDM - Institute of Experimental Design & Media Cultures, Basel Academy of Art & Design, FHNW.
2023: ‘Rewilding the machine: Technologies for inclusion in feminist, decolonial & more-than-human worlds’ [lecture], SIAT - School of Interactive Arts & Technology, SFU.
2023: ‘An experimental exchange of ideas between journalists and socially-engaged artists’ [panel], Mozilla Festival.
2023: ‘Growing interdisciplinary virtual communities’ [panel], Beyond the Now, Berlin.
2022: ‘Climate stories and digital design’ [panel chair], Digital Design Week, Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London, UK.
2022: ‘Anticipating change: From climate collapse to eco-social futures’ [panel], CreaTures Festival, ES.
2022: ‘Creative participatory methods in urban social research’ [guest lecture], Department of Sociology, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
2022: ‘Digital cultures for regeneration? Mutual aid and resistance in the Anthropocene’ [guest lecture], Mutual Affinities, Creative Scotland.
2022: ‘Undisciplined knowledge? Intervening in the climate crisis for trans/disciplinary regeneration’ [public lecture], University College London (UCL).
2021: ‘Digital spaces of resistance: Community histories of open source & the commons’ [guest lecture] Create Ireland x We/Us Digital Clinic.
2021: ‘Rethink the system, together: Makers and the circular economy in China’ [talk], Making Futures, Plymouth College of Art, UK.
2021: ‘New coalitions in socially engaged digital practice’ [panel], Mozilla Festival.
2021: ‘Museums in a virtual age’ [panel], Faculty of Arts & Humanities, University College London, UK.
2020: ‘Arts practice otherwise’ [guest lecture], Crisis//Critical Education, ArtEZ University of Arts, Arnhem, NL.
2020: ‘Libraries & museums: Third spaces of?’ [panel], Neue Kulturgeographien, Bonn, Germany.
2019: ‘Hacking the museum? Space and power at London cultural institutions’[public lecture], Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, UK.
2019: ‘Maker cultures of the commons’ [talk], STEAMhouse Talks, Birmingham, UK.
2019: ‘Future perspectives: Making in 2030’ [talk], Sustainable Innovation, London, UK.
2018: ‘Makers - and museums - as a market’ [panel], Making It Conference, Liverpool, UK.
2018:’Temporary shared machines: An open discussion with the Tate, hacked’ [talk], Electronic Visualisation & Arts (EVA), London, UK.
2018: ‘那些创造世界的人 | Make the world’ [panel], 中英创客生态分享会 Maker Exchange, ALLAB, Chengdu, China.
2017: ‘Power geometries in museums’ [panel], Location & networked creativity in gamer, hacker and maker publics, AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers), Tartu, Estonia.
2016: ‘Who’s the digital revolution for?’ [panel], Brighton Digital Festival, UK.
2016: ‘Hacking the museum?’ [panel], Digital fabrications of hackers, makers and manufacturers: whose 'industrial revolution'? 4S/EASST, Barcelona.
2016: ‘Speculative making: Possible futures’, Maker Assembly, Belfast.
2016: ‘Technologies and performative play: Re-creation and subversion of institutionalised cultures’ [panel], Forgotten genealogies of art, technology and science, Society for the History of Technology, National University of Singapore, SG.
2016: ‘From making to criticality and back again: Two makerspace futures’ [talk], Maker Assembly, Farest Labs Hackspace, Belfast, IR.
2013: ‘La Aventura de sabar: LibreGraphics and open design globally’ [interview], RTVE News.
2013: ‘Seven faces of open design’ [keynote], LibreGraphics, Madrid, SP.
2012: ‘Get more women on board: Tech, activism & gender [panel], Campus Party EU, Berlin, DE.
2012: ‘Hacking open data for creativity’ [talk], Re:publica Konference, Berlin.
2012:‘Free city, open source’ [talk], Pixelache, Tallinn, Estonia.
2011: ‘Making the difference: Lady hackers’ [interview], BBC Radio, UK.
2011: ‘She-hackers: Gender in F/LOSS’ [talk], Chaos Communication Camp, Germany, DE.