معرفی
Anthony Wagner-Vepsä serves as a Lecturer in Design and Gender Studies at the Department of Design within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University. His academic career spans teaching, research, and program coordination with a focus on challenging normative frameworks through design and cultural studies.
His educational background includes Visual Media Design - Video studies at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria, and a PhD in Cultural Studies from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria, where his dissertation focused on transgender, monsters and film.
Wagner-Vepsä's research centers on what he terms 'subversive design'—norm-creative practices of resistance against hegemonic narratives connected to normative bodies and lives. His work explores how design frequently excludes non-normative end-users (extreme users), particularly transgender individuals, through heteronormative assumptions about sex, procreative sexuality, and ableist notions of 'normal' bodies. His postdoc project, the Trans Fashion Project, examined transmasculine clothing strategies, specifically binders, conducted in cooperation with ABF Malmö and trans collaborators.
His scholarly output reveals a consistent trajectory exploring monster theory as a framework for understanding transgender experiences and resistance. The publications show deep engagement with queer theory, somatechnics, and crip theory, with a particular emphasis on how marginalized communities creatively adapt and subvert designed objects to meet their needs. His work bridges theoretical cultural studies with practical design applications, particularly in sustainable design contexts.
- CRKKL - Circular economy in Kronoberg and Kalmar County (2019-2021), co-financed by ERUF
- NKI SHS – Norm Creative Innovation in Smart Housing Småland (2018), VINOVA financed project
Wagner-Vepsä coordinates the Design +Change Bachelor programme (2021-2024) and is part of the creative research group 'Det Dolda' with Ola Ståhl and Petra Lilja. His teaching spans Social Sciences and Design programs, including Introduction to Transgender Studies (2016-ongoing) and various design courses focusing on gender, norms, sustainability, and creative methods.