Look before naming
Begin with the photograph. What do you notice? What draws your attention, and what do you bring to the encounter?
Let the image open the discussion before introducing the concept or prompts.
Global
Reflections.
Global Reflections | Envisioning Cards Extension Set
A co-creative project by Anna Melnyk (TU Delft), Ángela María Díaz (Universidad de Las Américas, UDLA) and the SolipsisArt Photographic Collective (Ecuador).
Global Reflections Extension Set expands the Value Sensitive Design Envisioning Cards through ten concepts addressing global justice, epistemic plurality, colonial legacies, power, and relational responsibility. The project emerged from a process of research, participatory workshops, dialogue, and collaborative creation within the Delft Design for Values Institute at TU Delft.
SolipsisArt is an Ecuadorian collective of women photographers and cultural managers whose practice brings together image, territory, gender, identity, and rights. For Global Reflections, ten photographers each engaged with one of the concepts from their own contexts, lived experiences, and situated ways of seeing.
By connecting ethical inquiry, transdisciplinary exchange, and photographic practice, Global Reflections asks a fundamental question: whose knowledge, experiences, and ways of seeing shape the technological futures we imagine?
We invite you to begin with the photographs. Take time to notice what draws your attention, what feels familiar, and what you find difficult to interpret. The concepts and artists’ reflections offer further perspectives, but they need not be your starting point.
02 / CO-CREATION
The creation process is a transformative journey.
Global Reflections took shape through conceptual research, participatory testing, transdisciplinary dialogue, bridge building, photographic interpretation, and collaborative curation. The finished cards hold only one part of that story.
A GLIMPSE OF THE COLLABORATIONAcross images, words
Across images, words
and shared worlds.
The exhibition keeps the process behind the cards visible. Artists’ reflections remain alongside their photographs, while the archive reveals the multiple interpretations, conversations and curatorial choices through which each concept took visual form.
Together, they keep open the different ways of seeing and knowing that shaped Global Reflections.
03 / TEN ARTISTIC REFLECTIONS
Enter through
a photograph.
Choose a work. Stay with the image, read the artist’s reflection in English or Spanish, trace its curatorial path, or bring its questions into your own practice.
04 / AN INSTRUMENT FOR REFLECTION
Global Reflections creates space to question the terms of a decision.
Global Reflections adds an envisioning criterion concerned with global justice, epistemic plurality, colonial legacies and relational responsibility. It extends reflection beyond which values should inform a design towards how problems, knowledge, stakeholders and desirable futures are framed in the first place.
It can be used independently or alongside the original Envisioning Cards in research, design, teaching, policy and community settings.
Meet another interpretation
Read the artist’s reflection alongside your own response. It offers a situated interpretation, not an explanation or a correct reading.
What becomes visible when different experiences and ways of seeing meet?
Carry the question into practice
Use the concept and prompts to revisit a decision, project or problem in research, design, teaching, policy or community practice.
Which assumptions become visible? Whose knowledge or relationships are missing? What might need to change?
05 / PEOPLE & RELATIONSHIPS
Anna Melnyk
Project lead · conceptual & methodological development
Initiated Global Reflections and developed its conceptual and methodological foundations within the Design for Values and Critical Raw Materials: Decolonial Justice Perspectives project. Her work connected decolonial justice scholarship with Design for Values, developed the ten Global Reflections, and shaped their translation into a reflective instrument through participatory testing and refinement.
TU DelftÁngela María Díaz
Co-creation · bridge building & collaborative design
Joined Global Reflections as a key collaborator in refining the emerging framework and shaping its collaborative development. Her work connected cultural, disciplinary and artistic perspectives, supported the translation of concepts across contexts, and created bridges through which the collaboration with SolipsisArt and the wider artistic process could take shape.
Universidad de Las Américas · UDLASolipsisArt
Artistic interpretation · process design & collaborative curation
Shaped and coordinated the artistic development of Global Reflections, bringing the conceptual framework into dialogue with situated photographic practices in Ecuador. The collective invited ten photographers from its network, structured a process in which each artist developed multiple visual interpretations and written reflections, and led the curatorial process while preserving the photographers’ role in selecting their final images.
SolipsisArt Photographic Collective · EcuadorThe participating artists
06 / THE CONVERSATION CONTINUESWhat will you
What will you
look at differently?
An observation, a question, a disagreement. There is no required response, and no need to resolve everything here.
Share a reflection ↗07 / TAKE THE INQUIRY FURTHER
Resources to download, use and share
Global Reflections Tool KitSupplied English card-production layout · 12 pages · PDFCompanion guideProject background, use, credits and attribution · 4 pages · PDF
Citation, attribution & licence
Cite the extension
Melnyk, A., & Díaz, A. (2026). Global Reflections: Envisioning Cards Extension. Delft Design for Values Institute, Delft University of Technology.
When also drawing on the original toolkit
Friedman, B., Nathan, L. P., Kane, S. K., Lin, J., Yoo, D., Logler, N., Ballard, S., & Hendry, D. G. (2024). Envisioning Cards: A Value Sensitive Design Toolkit (2nd ed.). University of Washington Value Sensitive Design Lab.
Required attribution
© 2011–2025 UW VSD Lab Envisioning Cards. Original cards, structure and format available under license from: https://vsdesign.org/toolkits/envisioningcards/
© 2026 Global Reflections Envisioning Cards Extension. Anna Melnyk, Ángela María Díaz & SolipsisArt Photographic Collective.
Licence statement from the Companion Guide
The Global Reflections Envisioning Cards Extension was developed under license from the University of Washington Value Sensitive Design Lab. It is an independently developed extension that builds upon the original Envisioning Cards structure and format while introducing new concepts, artistic interpretations, and facilitation materials. The extension is intended to complement the original toolkit and does not modify its content. The use of the names University of Washington, Value Sensitive Design Lab, or Envisioning Cards does not imply endorsement of this extension.
These source statements are retained in their supplied English wording. Each photograph and artistic reflection is separately attributed to its creator.
Project context & support
Global Reflections was developed as part of the Delft Design for Values Seed Project Design for Values and Critical Raw Materials: Decolonial Justice Perspectives, funded by the Delft Design for Values Institute. The Seed Project was broader than the toolkit itself. It explored how decolonial justice could inform Design for Values at both conceptual and methodological levels, through research, teaching, participatory engagement and interdisciplinary exchange. Global Reflections emerged as one tangible outcome of this wider inquiry.
The project also developed through the intellectual community of the TU Delft Decolonial Working Group, of which Anna Melnyk and Ángela María Díaz are members. The group provided a space for dialogue and critical reflection around decolonial perspectives. MABIKAs Foundation, a partner of the TU Delft Decolonial Working Group, contributed through decolonial dialogue and feedback during the development of Global Reflections.
Participatory testing was an important part of the development process. Engineering students at TU Delft engaged with the emerging concepts in educational settings, while members of the Special Interest Group (SIG) Design for Justice: A Pluralist Approach provided an interdisciplinary setting for testing and discussing the completed Extension Set within the Delft Design for Values community.
The University of Washington Value Sensitive Design Lab, including Batya Friedman and David Hendry, provided feedback on the extension as it developed in relation to the original Envisioning Cards.
Contributions & support
- Funding & project home
- Delft Design for Values Institute
- Decolonial dialogue & intellectual exchange
- TU Delft Decolonial Working Group
MABIKAs Foundation · partner of the Decolonial Working Group - Participatory testing · engineering education
- Engineering students · TU Delft
- Testing · interdisciplinary community & exchange
- Special Interest Group (SIG) Design for Justice: A Pluralist Approach
- VSD dialogue & feedback
- University of Washington Value Sensitive Design Lab
Batya Friedman · David Hendry - Conceptual & methodological development · project lead
- Anna Melnyk
- Co-creation · bridge building & collaborative design
- Ángela María Díaz
- Artistic process · interpretation & collaborative curation
- SolipsisArt Photographic Collective
