[POSTPONED] Beautiful Justice: The Aesthetics of Oppression and Freedom

What role does aesthetics play in the struggle for social justice? Aesthetic judgments saturate our interactions with media, from billion-dollar advertising campaigns to texts from ancient philosophy. However, aesthetics also play a crucial role in our lived experience of oppression and freedom. From the racist claims for white beauty as superior genetics to the liberating music inspirations of reggae, hip-hop, and soul, the aesthetic dimensions of struggles for social justice, and the hidden politics behind aesthetic perceptions, have received little attention. This presentation revisits the historical and cross-disciplinary conversations around aesthetics as beauty through form and function and introduces beautiful justice, a design framework that aims to extend the discussion to include justice.