In 2022, I hosted a roundtable at the Design Research Society Conference that explored how design can engage with taboo topics. While design increasingly addresses new and underexplored areas, many subjects remain taboo and so receive little critical attention. The roundtable opened a conversation about the barriers faced by design researchers and practitioners working with taboo topics and strategies for addressing them. A recording of the session is available in the video below.

Since then, I have continued to develop both research and practice in this area. I am one of the co-chairs of the “Designing for and with Taboo” track for the upcoming Design Research Society Conference 2026 in Edinburgh (with Ana Correia de Barros, Yoni Lefevre, and Petra Salaric). The track invites researchers and practitioners to consider what constitutes taboo, how design can address it, and why engaging with taboo topics is important.