Subversive image between neuroscience and critical design

The strand of educational research is based on the third level of education and concerns, in particular, issues relating to methodologies for design education in the current Italian context. The case presented, developed in the thesis “Unlearning design in Italy: Critical representation as a tool of change”, addresses some central issues in the debate and experimentation on educational research. Beginning with a fundamental historical analysis of the theoretical and philosophical evolution of design pedagogy in Italy, the research goes on analyzing the state of the art of what is found in the literature as a multifaceted contemporary phenomenon, present in various contexts outside Italy, of a critical and political revision of the discipline of design and its teaching. This critical “trend” will therefore be analyzed, looking at some of the “subversive” design labels from history to the present day, attempting, through a review of the literature, to identify common points or criticalities and differences in intentions. Fundamental was the activation of an international research experience at the FHNW Academy of Arts in Design (Basel-Switzerland), during which an ethnographic investigation was carried out at the didactic laboratory entitled “Design, Feminism and Politics” and within the research center Critical Media Lab.