HAQUE TAN

HAQUE TAN is an art & design studio led by Ling Tan & Usman Haque, award-winning artists & creative technologists, trained as architects. Drawing on decades of experience in architecture, art, technology and participation, they are also the creative force behind interactive design studio Umbrellium. HAQUE TAN works globally, combining the scale of architecture with the ingenuity of art and the eccentricities of technology, to make spaces more democratic, inclusive, and culturally-driven.

Ling Tan is a designer, artist and creative technologist focused on social engagement, urban data science and environmental politics. Trained as an architect, she has worked with diverse communities worldwide on a range of participatory and technological initiatives to address pressing urban issues, including the climate crisis, public safety, air quality, and gender and racial equity.

Trained as an architect, Usman Haque’s work is dedicated to transforming urban environments to get communities meaningfully engaged. His work embraces many disciplines, including interactive architecture, participatory design, urban community infrastructure and large-scale public art/performance.

Why bother trying to change the world, when it’s wrapped up in polycrises and nothing we do as individuals seems to make a difference? We believe that change is possible and, in this talk, hope to show through our projects that when people work together, actions become enduring.

Our focus is on designing and building engaging urban environments, rather than just speculating or exhibiting, creating exciting interactive architecture, systems and experiences that get people working together and co-creating diverse shared futures. Critical of techbro AI and Big Tech platforms, our work rescripts how they can be designed, built and presented, particularly in public space, to connect people, giving them ‘superpowers’ to take action on the world.

In this time of entangled ecological, political and social crises, when most of our media and technology platforms promote the idea of irrefutable truth and techno-inevitability, it’s essential to build alternative paths, by reimagining, repurposing and reconfiguring “the master’s tools” to create more productive ways of interacting with the world.