Radical Future(s) Fest 💛 Spaces, Systems, & Shared Futures
Tuesday, October 7th, 2025 • 6:00 - 8:30 PM
Kiln Coworking • Doors at 5:30 PM
What happens when we treat belonging as a design outcome? Spaces, Systems & Shared Futures brings together a multidisciplinary panel of designers, artists, and changemakers to explore how the built environment, systems, and cultural practice shape identity and community.
Across disciplines, from art as social practice to design anthropology to urban design, panelists will reflect on the possibilities and tensions of creating spaces that honor equity, identity, and shared futures. Together, panelists will ask what it means to design not only physical spaces but also the invisible systems that structure community and belonging.
What to Expect
You’ll hear from each of our panelists, and they will engage in a moderated dialogue followed by audience Q&A, offering multiple entry points for reflection and exchange. Expect a lively, layered conversation that bridges the actionable with the visionary.
Hear diverse perspectives on how visible design and invisible systems shape belonging
Gain insight into work that crosses sectors of art, community practice, and civic engagement
Explore how creative approaches can reimagine institutions, policies, and everyday spaces
Connect with others curious about placemaking, identity, and justice-oriented design
Who It’s For
Designers, architects, and artists working with community or within public systems
Community members interested in the connection between place and
Civic leaders and policymakers curious about cross-disciplinary approaches to belonging
Featured Panelists and Moderator:
Mrinalini (Minu) Tankha, Design Anthropologist, Portland State University
Kevin Truong, Documentary Photographer, Filmmaker and Journalist
Suenn Ho, Urban Designer, Co-Founder, and Principal, RESOLVE Architecture + Planning
Farah Dinga, Actor, Playwright, Producer, and Educator
Organized by the Agency for Speculative Futures
This panel is part of the three-day Radical Future(s) Fest (Oct 6–8) and Imagining Otherwise: Storytelling & Narrative Future(s) Miniseries (Oct 18-20) during 2025 Portland Design Month:
Future(s) Assembly (science fair, meet design on Oct 6)
Civic Futures Remix (a design jam focused on the future of municipal grocery stores on Oct 8) to be rescheduled
Performance as Prototype (table reads of an in-progress performance on Oct 18 and Oct 19)
Narrative Design Lab (a hands-on workshop on Oct 19)
Imagining Otherwise (a multi-disciplinary panel on Oct 20)
Learn More at bit.ly/asf2025
Featured Panelists and moderator
Mrinalini Tankha
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Portland State University (PSU)
Mrinalini (Minu) Tankha is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at PSU, where she co-founded the Compassionate Computing Lab, an interdisciplinary space addressing bias and fairness in AI. She conducts research and teaches courses on design, technology, money, and economic inequality, with projects spanning Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. As a design anthropologist, she explores how communities navigate effects of financial crises and economic exclusion and instability to craft new forms of value and belonging. Minu is a co-designer of Loy Loy: The Savings Game.
Kevin Truong
Documentary Photographer, Filmmaker and Journalist
Born in a refugee camp for Vietnamese Boat People in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Kevin was raised in Oregon and has a strong connection to the Pacific Northwest. He first gained recognition through The Gay Men Project, documenting queer men in 37 countries. His films have been supported by the Sundance Institute, CAAM, and BAVC Media, and he is a member of A-Doc. Kevin has written for NBC News, VICE, and PBS NewsHour, with written and photography work appearing in The New York Times, Washington Post, OUT Traveler, BKLYNER and Hello Mr. A two-term AmeriCorps alum, he is deeply committed to community service and storytelling.
Suenn Ho
Urban Designer and Co-founder, RESOLVE Architecture + Planning
Urban designer Suenn Ho is the co-founder of RESOLVE Architecture + Planning and a longtime advocate for culturally-rooted design. Her work spans historic interpretation, public architecture, and community-based planning. As a former Fulbright fellow, and a grant recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts, Suenn’s research-based designs reveal the seldom celebrated stories of places and their communities. She uses her design as a tool to evoke memoryand our sense of justice. Suenn has designed and built for public agencies and museums and has created cultural placemaking installations across Oregon, such as the Heritage Trail Outdoor Museum in downtown Tigard and the Exhibit Plaza at the Oregon Rail Heritage Museum. Her design process of the Garden of Surging Waves in Astoria broke rules on all levels, and the project received four design awards! Suenn is currently serving on the Portland Parks & Recreation Advisory Board.
Farah Dinga
Associate Producer at Boom Arts, Arts Access Facilitator and Educator, Theatre Artist, and Activist
Farah Dinga is an Associate Producer at Boom Arts, a performing arts presenter and producer that brings international performing arts to Portland, and helps audiences imagine new social and political possibilities through live performance. Trained at the University of California San Diego, they are an award-winning theater artist, educator, and facilitator with an emphasis on promoting arts accessibility for underserved communities such as BIPOC, migrant, refugee, LGBTQIA+, and people with disabilities. Their work has been showcased at institutions such as The Old Globe, La Jolla Playhouse, Diversionary Theatre, New Village Arts, MOXIE Theatre, University of San Diego, and many more. In addition to their work in the American Theatre landscape, they have extensive community organizing experience and have spent over 15 years fighting against the military industrial complex, mass incarceration, and police brutality, and in support of queer/trans rights, disabled rights, migrant rights, Black Lives Matter, and for a free Palestine and greater SWANA region.
Host & organizer
erin stevanus
erin is an artist, strategist, and social entrepreneur whose practice spans foresight, innovation, and multidisciplinary practices. Her current project, the Agency for Speculative Futures, explores our collective right to imagine otherwise. She also runs a design futures studio, collaborating with private, public, nonprofit, and philanthropic organizations, and coaches leaders committed to building just and joyful futures. In her creative practice, erin writes, produces, and performs works that explore not-too-distant futures and the mindsets needed to navigate them. She currently hosts the sonic sound lab, a series of deep listening experiences that invites curiosity, exploration, and rest.
