Dementia Lab Conference
2025 Portugal

ethics + aesthetics in design

13 & 14 March 2025
University of Aveiro,
Portugal

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The next edition of the Dementia Lab Conference will take place on 13-14 March 2025, hosted by the University of Aveiro, Portugal. The 2025 edition is jointly organised by ID+ (Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture), and CINTESIS@RISE (Center for Health Technology and Services Research at the Associate Laboratory RISE – Health Research Network).

Call for participation is expected in the Spring of 2024. If you would like to be part of the conference’s mailing list, please fill in this form.

Logos of the organising entities: FCT, ID+, CINTESIS, University of Aveiro, RISE

Approached from an inclusive, participatory and person-centered perspective, the Dementia Lab Conference allows for focused discussion with like-minded designers, researchers, carers and other professionals operating within this domain. Where in other venues it might be challenging to convey the experience of working with people with dementia, or the urgency of working in this field, the Dementia Lab Conference tries to provide a platform of inclusion. As the number of people with dementia continues to increase worldwide, designers, educators and carers are continuously presented with new challenges. As a collective network, we believe that design can help improve the potential of products, technology, services and environments to alleviate these challenges and contribute to the quality of life, care and well-being of people living with dementia.

Established in 2016, the Dementia Lab is a growing community that continues to build on a legacy of designing for and with people living with dementia and their surrounding context.

About the Dementia Lab Conference

View of the conference room of the Dementia Lab 2022 @ Leuven event
Coffee break at the Dementia Lab 2022 event @ Leuven
Niels Hendriks at Dementia Lab 2022 event @ Leuven
Collaborative board with post-its in a workshop at the Dementia Lab 2022 @ Leuven event

Dementia Lab 2022 @ Leuven
Credits: Studio Lieke Li (conference photos); Andrea Wilkinson (post-it board).

Hands of a person with dementia painting

Dementia Lab 2025 theme: ethics + aesthetics in design

The theme of the Dementia Lab Conference 2025 will look at ethics and aesthetics. Although often not recognised as paramount topics, both are central when designing for, and together with people with dementia, as well as when selecting and using any kind of products in dementia care.

In the work with and for people with dementia, we often are confronted with ethical issues and concerns. Not only because we are dealing with people who might be vulnerable, and whose diagnosis is evolving, but also because this leads to differences in the experience of realities and beliefs, which we might be difficult to understand and respond to. This is, sometimes, perceived as a constraint to the creativity and aesthetic freedom of the designer. On the other hand, aesthetics is occasionally regarded as not relevant or worthy for people with dementia. However, being a provider of aesthetic experiences, design can contribute to turning the world that surrounds us more pleasant, comforting and attractive, thus potentially more inviting, stimulating and inclusive. By ‘aesthetic’, we not only refer to beauty but to an embodied engagement with the world, through the senses, which becomes even more crucial to acknowledge and incentivize as dementia progresses. Therefore, aesthetics might also support more ethical care practices and a means to challenge stigma.

The next edition of Dementia Lab invites you to reflect and engage in discussions around ethics and aesthetics, and the tensions and associations between them.