Jose Luis Martinez Velarde – Scholarship recipient, Ung Svensk Form 2026
Scholarship: Arctic Design Center
Assignments focusing on reuse, accessibility, and social benefits. Funded with the help of EU funds.
Crafting through waste
Crafting through waste is a design research project that examines and problematizes the act of discarding—both material waste and people who are marginalized in society. The project revolves around furniture made from discarded cardboard packaging and uses co-creation as a method in collaboration with Newcomers, a queer group that supports immigrants and asylum seekers in Sweden. By linking material waste with social exclusion, the project explores how dominant systems make both objects and lives expendable and disposable.
Waste is a natural part of human life, but during the Anthropocene it has escalated into a global crisis that is overburdening ecosystems and our ability to manage it. At the same time, right-wing political movements in the global North portray migration and diversity as threats, and pursue policies that lead to deprivation of liberty, marginalization, and deportation. The project draws a parallel between how we discard waste and how people are excluded.
Through a series of collaborative workshops, participants help transform discarded cardboard packaging—a material that symbolizes disposability—into functional seating furniture. These events promote community and reflection, and give participants the opportunity to influence the process and leave their mark on the result. In this way, the finished furniture becomes a medium for collective creation and shared use. By integrating social and material narratives into everyday objects such as chairs and stools, the project demonstrates how design can highlight and challenge exclusionary systems.