Marcos Mortensen Steagall

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• Doctor of Philosophy
• Associate Professor at Auckland University of Technology

This collection of 13 manuscripts presents the exegetical writing produced by final-year undergraduate students completing their Bachelor of Visual Design, with a major in Communication Design, at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). These manuscripts are a key component of the students’ Level 7 capstone projects, where creative practice is cri...

In this second issue, LINK PRAXIS: Journal of Practice-led Research in Design and Global South continues its mission to publish high-quality scholarly contributions that engage with critical topics in design research. Volume 2 comprises two distinct sections, presenting innovative perspectives and methodologies within the field. The first section f...

Through practice-led research, this project seeks to design a Vietnamese display typeface based on cultural identity and heritage. Huong is a typeface which synthesises cultural identity and traditions, showcased in the form of a printed type specimen and contextualised posters. Through understanding the significance of Vietnamese folk art and thei...

“Pangako Ko” is a piece of work that is centred around the maintenance and acknowledgement of the Filipino cultural identity abroad through publication design. Based on my upbringing through the eyes of immigrant parents, provides nostalgic remembrance towards future enactment of the culture. The project aims to ground and reconnect Filipino indivi...

This practice-led, artistic project explores the conceptual idea of a book as an object. It is an exploration of materiality and a documentation of artefacts found in APT. 5B. The exegesis talks to the significance of time capsules and the longevity of materials, which cements an everlasting legacy. This capstone involves curating a time capsule wh...

The LINK 2024 Conference on Practice-Led Research and the Global South brings together artistic, Indigenous, and practice-oriented research that engages with cultural, environmental, and societal challenges from a Global South perspective. Structured into four sessions, the conference proceedings showcase diverse methodologies, cultural insights, a...

From Third Place is a practice-led project that explores the concept of third place in relation to society of the inner city, specifically Auckland CBD, using the traditional cultural anthropological methods of fieldwork and observational drawing to explore third places in Auckland. This project addresses the concept of third place and its role wit...

This practice-led research and design project examines Jewish diasporic histories retold through food and cuisine. It employs illustration, motif, mapping and colour symbolism to create an environment akin to a Jewish home on Shabbat evening simultaneously commenting on serious topics to develop these ideas within the confinements of publication fo...

This practice-led artistic inquiry explores the relationship between letterforms and place. It asks the question: How can letterforms and book design conventions express the phenomenological experience of the eerie urban ruin? The conceptual framework for this research is of the ruin as liminal space sparking imagination and fascination. It embrace...

This practice-led research project explores a personal reconnection with the landscape of Aotearoa. It takes the form of eight stacked books which become symbolic "stones" within a "paper cairn”, employing the metaphor of a cairn to represent the marking of significant places. Each book implements elements of illustration, photography, and storytel...

Using communication design to create a brand identity, which is designed to educate young female adults on gut health and encourage healthier eating. Be Picky is a healthy snack option that advocates for good gut health, by educating and encouraging consumers to make healthier food choices, all while healing their gut. In recent years, studies have...

‘Single Handed’ is a practise-led project which investigates how scrapbook-publications can be used to communicate disabled perspectives. Situated in the context of disability culture and disability arts, where disability is used to describe barriers in society for people with impairments, Single Handed explores how scrapbooking techniques can be u...

In ‘A Deep Dive’ I evaluate how journaling, editorial design, and tokens can be used to enhance swimmers’ performance. Becoming a high-performance swimmer requires a strong mindset to overcome challenging situations and perform at the highest level. As an aspiring high-performance swimmer, I have used personal experiences to develop a strategy to o...

This project considers how branding can educate students on the importance of a healthy diet for academic performance. Using Communication design to create a brand identity, designed to educate teenagers and students on the importance of a nutritious diet for academic performance and encourage healthier food choices. Recognising the challenges that...

This practice-led project explores Filipina Identity through mixed media graphic design, asking how two halves of a Pre and Post-Colonial female identity may exist in visual and narrative harmony. Through a series of seven assemblages, the practitioner takes the bold landscapes and bright, colourful creatures of Pre-Colonial Philippine mythology in...

This study aims to look at children’s opinions and ideas of representations of cultures in global animated films. The main idea behind this journal article is to give voice to the children that consume those media texts. This paper will highlight children’s answers to online surveys and one-on-one interviews from the second part of the data collect...

Māori perspectives on environmental management advocate for a balanced and interconnected approach, prioritising long-term sustainability. This contrasts with more reductionist and economically driven approaches focussed on short-term commercial gains. This paper provides an overview New Zealand’s Quota Management System (QMS) and Māori fishing rig...

This paper explores the concept of "Travesías" as a profound pedagogical practice within the School of Architecture and Design at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, which operates as a crucial form of resistance in design education amidst contemporary cultural and structural shifts. As a professor deeply involved in these journeys,...

This exegesis considers a practice-led research project that addresses the importance of remembering local histories through an exploration of the Great South Road. The project aims to utilise interactive publication design to visually communicate the largely unknown events that took place in the period surrounding the construction of the Great Sou...

This article explores the creative practice of immigrant photography, specifically examining the artistic work of immigrants who have chosen Australia as their place of settlement. Analysing their photographic works, the article reflects on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus clivé, which develops the notion of a fractured or divided self. This di...

This article will outline the practice-led research project Carnival Land, a picture book that weaves together sequential storytelling and illustration to discuss cultural dislocation. Based on the researcher’s experiences as an immigrant from Brazil to New Zealand, it provides a narrative in metaphors and a creative orchestration of photomontage,...

This practice-oriented design research project seeks to explore the question: How might the creative use of multiperspective transmedia storytelling and interactive media foster convergence? In an era marked by increasing polarisation and partisan politics within contemporary society, it is crucial to investigate how media can promote multiplicity....

This study introduces a practice-led, artistic research project that explores the question: What considerations are necessary when photographing land to convey an immersive, embodied, and spiritually-attuned connection between the self and the subject? The study suggests that embodiment transcends cognitive and physical realms, engaging with a ‘liv...

Dreams of a Solo Traveller offers a reimagined perspective on the Chinese term 剩女 (Shèngnǚ or "Leftover Woman"), a label often applied to unmarried, urban professional women over the age of 27. In this research, the term is reframed to represent women who, rather than adhering to traditional marital expectations, deliberately pursue alternative pat...

This practice-oriented design research project looks to explore the question: how might the creative use of multiperspective transmedia storytelling and interactive media foster convergence? In a context of increasing polarisation and partisan politics within contemporary society, it is essential to explore how media can foster multiplicity. This P...

This study presents a practice-led, artistic research project that asks the question: What considerations must be taken into account when photographing land to convey an immersive, embodied, and spiritually-attuned connection between the self and what is captured? The study posits that embodiment extends beyond cognitive and physical realms, engagi...

This study investigates the interactions between Design and Engineering, two areas that, in addition to going beyond their traditional boundaries, dialogue with other disciplines in search of innovative solutions to contemporary challenges. Focussing on the inclusion of Design teaching in Engineering courses, it uses the Design Thinking methodology...

This presentation examines the critical role of tikanga (protocols and practices) and Mātāpuna (values) in the transmission of knowledge across generations within Māori communities. Key practices, such as whakawhanaungatanga (relationship building) and pepeha (a formal introduction model), serve as essential mechanisms for embedding and passing on...

This practice-oriented artistic project, undertaken as part of a Master of Philosophy, seeks to explore how transgenerational grief and healing can be articulated through the profound experience of diving with humpback whales, presented within multimedia installations. The project examines the potential of these installations to serve as a medium f...

The 5th Edition of LINK 2023 International Conference of Practice-led Research and Global South, focusing on the Latin American Diaspora in Aotearoa New Zealand, aimed to advance the experiences of this community and their contributions to culture and knowledge. It examined their impact and influence on design, creativity, language, and diasporic k...

In recent decades, there has been an emergence of academic discourse about the Global South and Indigenous knowledge internationally, opening opportunities for practice-led research due to the rich epistemologies from Aotearoa. In New Zealand, Māori designers and artists have enriched and redefined the conceptual boundaries of how research is condu...

Kapa haka is not simply the song and dance of Aotearoa’s Indigenous people; it is deeply steeped in mātauranga Māori, and a way of simultaneously exemplifying Māori history, present, and future. Meanwhile, this ever-expanding archive and cartography tool is also a community-focused cultural practice, methodology, pedagogy, and way of life. Contempo...

Ka matakitaki iho au ki te riu o Waikato Ano nei hei kapo kau ake maaku; Ki te kapu o taku ringa, “I look down on the valley of Waikato, As though to hold it In the hollow of my hand.” The words above are from Māori King Tawhiao’s maioha (song poem), a representation of his love for his homelands of the Waikato and the region known today as the Kin...

Covid-19’s (mate korona) spread across the world and the implementation of wide sweeping government instigated public health measures saw a growing notion globally that we are living in “unprecidented times”. This notion was also expressed in Aotearoa New Zealand with the arrival of Covid-19 to Aotearoa New Zealand shores in early 2020. While Covid...

This article considers the methodological framework constructed for the doctoral thesis Takatāpui Beyond Marginalisation: Exploring Māori Gender, Identity and Performance. In this practice-led artistic inquiry the researcher adopted a critically iterative approach where “research questions were initially exploratory and reflective, serving to creat...

In 1993, Wolfgramm referred to the climax in faiva (Tongan artistic performance)1 as ‘asi (the presence of the unseen). This spirit of artistic expression is an agent sometimes identified when Oceanic people work together to bring artistic projects to their apotheosis. Building on the idea of the unseen spirit that energises and gives agency to art...

In Aotearoa New Zealand, as a consequence of colonisation, generations of Māori have been alienated from both their language and culture. This project harnessed an artistic re-consideration of pūrākau (traditional stories) such that previously fractured or erased stories relating to Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga were orchestrated into a coherent narrativ...

In recent years, there has been a notable shift in the design field towards practice-led research, driven by the recognition of design practitioners as valuable contributors to knowledge production. However, the lack of well-defined methodologies for conducting practice-led research in academia has posed challenges to its progress and widespread ad...

It is generally accepted practice that research writing should include a review of the methodology and methods designed to increase the chances of the discovery of new knowledge in the field of inquiry. However, in indigenous research, the over-reliance on Western paradigms and methodological frameworks can be problematic, because they do not consi...

This article presents an artistic practice-led visual design research project that employs a reflective inquiry methodology to write and design a series of outcomes responding to a rhetoric approach that looks at how a female designer can develop connections to nature and how the design outcomes can empower women to care for themselves and the plan...

This article discusses a graphic design project about unsustainable habits around the home and their effects on climate change. The article reflects on practice-led design research, asking: How can graphic design be used to provoke young adults to make positive changes towards their unsustainable consumer habits in their homes? The design project e...

In the past three decades, designers have adopted an innovative position as practitioner- researchers in universities by conducting academic research through their creative practice. Many scholars have acknowledged and discussed the will to communicate through creative means. Such endeavours have always been part of the learning and teaching in Gra...

The spaces women take up in society have been shrouded in shame, disenfranchisement, and contention, with the kitchen as a focal point of this argument. This article aims to suggest ways in which women can take up space in the kitchen, this integral pillar of society that upholds connection and creativity as an art form. Adjacent to this subversive...

This article presents an artistic practice-led research project that asks: How can communication design be used to raise awareness about the effect of microplastics on coral reefs, encouraging a shift in the mentality of single-use plastic? The study highlights the scale of the issue of micro-plastics, where environmental pollution stemmed from the...

In recent years, creative work and its potential relationships to scholarly research are increasing in influence and introducing critical vitality to Universities, opening new approaches for collaboration, interdisciplinarity and community engagement. For practitioners, it offers a research approach that merges personal experience into the designer...

This article presents a practice-led artistic research project focused on the creative process of a scripted and illustrated graphic novel that draws from autoethnographic methods to engage with high levels of originality. The project: Breakthrough: An illustrated autoethnographic narrative into professional identity and storytelling responds to a...

This article presents a practice-led artistic research project that asks: How to represent an international Chinese student’s sense of belonging (or not belonging) through the aesthetics of visual poetry? The project looked into concrete poetry as a visual strategy to develop a design outcome consisting of two publications using an experimental typ...

This article presents a practice-led design project that asks how the effects of the lockdown can be articulated through illustration and poetry to narrate a personal story using an autoethnographic approach to retail high levels of dignity and originality? The research project aims to create a visual narrative, advanced through illustrations and p...

This article explores contextual research and creative design methodologies to understand the relationship between the researcher’s embodied approach and the produced artefact. The question of: ‘How might I honestly depict my own embodied textural world to awaken others?’ frames the project in a way which allows the designer/researcher to produce w...

It is increasingly overwhelming that our societies are living in disintegrating environments and need for more sustainable design approaches and wiser ways of living and being. Anthropogenic design impact in corporate spheres is causing socio-ecological destruction that threatens the underpinnings of civilisation and bio-diverse nature. Hence, econ...

In the last decades, there has been an emergence of an academic discourse called Indigenous knowledge internationally, creating a myriad of possibilities for research led by creative practice. In Aotearoa, New Zealand, Māori creative practice has enriched and shifted the conceptual boundaries around how research is conducted in the Western academy...

This paper presents arguments to explain the complexity of developing and producing a digital game (SCHREIER, 2018), which can culminate in unhealthy labor practices known as "crunch time" or simply "crunch". During crunch time, employees often work up to 90 hours a week, often as the release date approaches or there is a marketing event ahead – E....

Este trabalho discute as relações entre o contexto do pós-digital e do desenvolvimento independente de jogos, retratando os pontos de convergência e de divergência entre os dois. Para tanto, exploramos algumas das linhas de força da sociedade pós-digital e da independência no âmbito dos games. Busca-se, assim, relacionar características, motivações...

Despite its 35 years of academic presence, practice-led research is still in the process of building its status regarding definitions and its discourse. One of the fundamentals of this type of research is that practice-led expands the study to encompass questions that emerge from practice. Practice-led maintain the scientific, academic protocols an...

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the relationship between research and Design practice. Since the validation of practice-oriented research in universities in the 90s, an increasing number of Design students can submit a creative work along with a written exegesis for assessment purposes. The creative practice encompasses making...

In this second volume of the Dossier: LINK2022 Journal - Practice-led Research in Communication and Design, we bring another seven original articles selected from the presentations of researchers from Brazil, New Zealand, and Thailand held at LINK 2021 – International Conference in Practice-led research in Art, Communication and Design. The confere...

This article presents a practice-led research project that asks how experienced time can be perceived through manipulated photographic images. The investigation is carried out by a series of digital images whose content is renegotiated over time, while the subject of the photograph remains within the frame. The artwork evidences an unstable space b...

As mudanças afetaram significativamente a profissão e as disciplinas de design durante as últimas duas décadas, impulsionadas por problemas complexos que nossas sociedades enfrentam. Mudanças climáticas, perda de biodiversidade, esgotamento de recursos naturais e o fosso cada vez maior entre ricos e pobres são apenas alguns dos problemas complexos...

Esta propuesta de presentación plantea un caso de estudio pedagógico que se centra en formas innovadoras de promover la alfabetización visual para estudiantes de pregrado a través de la creación de imágenes basadas en lentes y tecnologías digitales. El plan de estudios se diseñó para impartirse a lo largo de un semestre académico en el campus sur d...

Los cambios han tenido un impacto significativo en la profesión y en las disciplinas del diseño durante las últimas dos décadas, impulsados por los problemas que enfrentan nuestras sociedades. El cambio climático, la pérdida de la biodiversidad, el agotamiento de los recursos naturales y la brecha cada vez mayor entre ricos y pobres son solo alguno...

Esta investigación de diseño orientada a la práctica investiga las oportunidades que tiene una expresión poética significativa dentro del medio digital. Su objetivo es crear poemas nacidos en formato digital que vinculen estrechamente el contenido con su forma, priorizando la presentación y el contenido textual del poema. Plantea la hipótesis de qu...

Esta pesquisa de design orientada para a prática investiga oportunidades de expressão poética significativa em um meio digital. Tem como objetivo criar poemas natos digitais que vinculem fortemente o conteúdo à sua forma, priorizando a apresentação e o conteúdo textual do poema. A hipótese é que o meio digital oferece mais oportunidades de expressã...

Los cambios han tenido un impacto significativo en la profesión y en las disciplinas del diseño durante las últimas dos décadas, impulsados por los problemas que enfrentan nuestras sociedades. El cambio climático, la pérdida de la biodiversidad, el agotamiento de los recursos naturales y la brecha cada vez mayor entre ricos y pobres son solo alguno...

Este texto aborda como a Realidade Virtual estabelece novos parâmetros para se pensar e trabalhar a questão da perspectiva quando comparado aos suportes bidimensionais mais tradicionais, como uma folha de papel ou tela. Aparatos tecnológicos como o Head-Mounted Display (HMD) permitem ao sujeito-interator se mover em um ambiente tridimensional virtu...

The Covid-19 pandemic and the social restriction measures that ensued have had a decisive impact on museum activities over the past two years. Research by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) indicates that about 95% of worldwide museums were closed between April and May 2020, a figure that falls to 27% in the same period in 2021. Given this...

This practice-oriented design research investigates opportunities for meaningful poetic expression within a digital medium. It aims to create born-digital poems that tightly tie content to its form, prioritising the presentation and textual content of the poem. It hypothesises that the digital medium offers more opportunities for personal expressio...

This paper considers an indigenous, methodological framework developed for my doctoral thesis, ‘Asi: The Presence of the Unseen. Defined as ‘Ngatu’ the framework employs the heliaki (metaphor) of women’s collective crafting of indigenous fabric, to structure an artistic research project. Ngatu is cloth made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree....

This presentation proposal advances a pedagogical case study that focuses on innovative ways of promoting visual literacy for undergraduate students through lens-based image-making and digital technologies. The curriculum was designed to be delivered throughout an academic semester at Auckland University of Technology South Campus, Manukau City, Ao...

Changes have significantly impacted the Design profession and disciplines during the last two decades, propelled by wicked problems confronting our societies. Climate change, loss of biodiversity, depletion of natural resources and the widening gap between rich and poor are just a few of the complex problems that require new approaches to problem-s...

This artistic, practice-led PhD thesis is concerned with the potentials of polyvocality and interactive digital narrative. The practical project, Saints of Paradox, is constructed as a printed picture book that can be experienced through an Augmented Reality [AR] platform. The fictional story entails a woman who mourns the disappearance of her love...

It has been ten years since the concept of the Publication Platform has been published in the special edition of the Scope Journal ISSN (online version; 1177-5661). The term ‘Publication Platform’ was introduced in the Practice Report, The Site of Publication in Contemporary Practice. This article surveyed a series of publication projects analysing...

A imagem se realiza com pluralidade de meios tecnológicos e seu crescimento representativo se deve em especial ao avanço da tecnologia nos últimos anos, que tem permitido a produção e transmissão de dados de forma dinâmica, sofisticada e cada vez mais acessível. Esse artigo oferece um entendimento sobre a crescente importância da imagem e a sua imb...

This study describes the framework of a brief developed for level 7 of a Bachelor of Graphic Design majoring in Communication Design and the design outcomes developed during an academic semester in Aotearoa. The brief employed the Design Studio approach to integrating social, technical and cognitive dimensions of knowledge construction. We explored...

Neste número do DATJournal trazemos três dossiês. No primeiro deles, que tem como editora convidada a Professora do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Design da UAM Cristiane Mesquita, temos o Dossiê das Saúde(s): Ziguezagues entre Arte, Filosofia e Design. Os textos trazem uma reflexão, deste momento, em meio à pandemia de COVID 19, à crise de valores e...

Learning and teaching in areas that require high levels of creativity, like Design and Art, can differ from other educational domains and methodologies. It may consider the complexity involving emergent properties activated from the interaction between many variables, including the researchers’ participation in what is researched. Design-based rese...

This study elaborates on the methodological approach designed in a practice-led research that questioned how experienced time might be perceived in manipulated photographic images. The research was developed through a body of practice and exegetical writing that contributes to knowledge relating to time as duration and how it might be artistically...

The year 2020 was marked by the economic and social challenges originating from the COVID-19 pandemic; measures were introduced to enforce social distancing in a battle against community transmission. Places like universities have been profoundly affected, forcing the adoption of new forms of delivery, where human contact was replaced with online c...

Com o crescente avanço das tecnologias da informação, a velocidade, a confiança e a precisão na transmissão e recepção de mensagens passaram a ser uma constante na vida das pessoas, principalmente devido às poderosas redes de comunicação. A comunicação por imagens é, hoje, um importante instrumento para a disseminação de conhecimento, informação e...

Este artigo é baseado em um estudo decorrente de uma investigação conduzida pela prática, e questiona “como os video games podem ser projetados para melhorar o conhecimento e a compreensão da tomada de decisão ao se jogar rugby?”. O estudo considera as possibilidades de colaboração entre as áreas de Design e Ciências do Esporte por meio do desenvol...

Este artigo considera como o tempo vivido pode ser percebido em imagens fotográficas manipuladas. A investigação é desenvolvida por uma série de imagens digitais cujo conteúdo é renegociado ao longo do tempo, enquanto o assunto da fotografia permanece dentro do quadro. As durégraphs resultantes constituem um espaço instável entre uma composição fot...

Este artigo descreve o papel do estúdio de design como uma abordagem pedagógica e apresenta o desenvolvimento de um brief (nome utilizado para descrever o conteúdo programático de uma disciplina) realizado com alunos do terceiro ano de graduação em Design, em Aotearoa, Nova Zelândia. Uma estrutura mista de métodos quantitativos e qualitativos, foi...