153. World Building with Animals: Madelena Mañetto Quick on Multispecies narratives

Episode 7/8 of Series 16 : The Captivity Conversation - Transcript

Maddy describes multispecies design as moving beyond human-centered design to consider how products, systems, and services affect non-human lives. We discuss sanctuaries as “safe bubbles” and the idea of “captive freedom,” parallels to children’s constrained freedom. Maddy explains her methods combining sensory/visual ethnography with speculative design and storytelling, including a role-playing card-based workshop imagining post-farming futures and power, hierarchy, and captivity across humans, animals, and land.

Guest Bio: Madelena Mañetto Quick is a design innovation lecturer specifically centring multispecies design and design justice. Since working on and completing her Masters project, a design and culture exploration of a pig farm in Aotearoa New Zealand, she has been focused on understanding the worlds we build with farmed animals. Madi’s research has subsequently explored interspecies relationships within farms and farm animal sanctuaries and the stories surrounding them. As a creative design researcher, Madi adopts a multidisciplinary approach, entangling multispecies ethnography, narrative studies, and speculative design. Her work aims to challenge dominant assumptions, reimagine human-animal relationships, and envision radical, hopeful futures through critical design and storytelling.

Book Recommendations:

Cheek by Jowl by Ursula K. Leguin- Cheek by Jowl is a collection of talks and essays on how and why fantasy matters.

Norsecer of the Valley of the Wind by Hayao Miyazaki

Related Links:

TDWA Blog

Guest Book Recommendations List