Abstract:
This presentation employs a story-driven approach to invite educators to view colonialism not as a completed historical event, but as a living infrastructure that continues to shape classrooms, curricula, and creative practice. It explores five interconnected themes: colonialism, education, African philosophy, design and design education, and the future, drawing on A Companion to African Philosophy (Kwesi Wiredu), Decolonising Design in Africa, and Ofosu-Asare’s work to connect philosophical debates to everyday pedagogy. Beginning with the cultural and psychological conquest of colonialism, the talk centres on Fanon’s insistence that any serious account of decolonisation must confront the lived experience of the colonised, including the historical, social, and economic conditions that shape the psyche. From there, it reframes education as a contested site where language, legitimacy, and evidence are policed, and where “performing for whiteness” becomes a learned survival strategy. The presentation then asks what constitutes African philosophy and why that question matters for design education. It closes by arguing for “design in the plural”, where multiple knowledge systems and modes of proof can coexist, and for futures grounded in cognitive justice rather than mimicry.

Bio:
Yaw Ofosu-Asare is a Ghanaian design researcher, educator and writer whose work sits at the intersection of decolonial theory, African philosophy and decolonised design. He is a lecturer in communication design at RMIT University in Melbourne. His scholarship examines how design, technology and education reproduce or resist colonial power, with a particular interest in African epistemologies, disability-inclusive climate resilience and the politics of environmental time.

Yaw is the author of Decolonising Design in Africa (Routledge, 2024) and African Design Futures (Springer Nature, 2024). His research and essays appear in international journals and edited collections. His creative and research practice blends storytelling, pedagogy, and design to reimagine futures beyond extractive systems, working closely with communities in Australia and Ghana on projects that span youth climate education and accessible, safe-space design for people with disabilities.

Across teaching, research and public writing, Yaw is committed to building plural, relational and justice-oriented design cultures grounded in African thought and lived experience.