People’s Republic of Bolzano or how digital artifacts can be adversarial to misinformation

Abstract

Design scholars have been focusing more of their attention to public controversial “things”, through the focus on “making public things” or on the “formation of publics” in relation to design projects. With this in mind, this paper describes a design case contrasting and challenging the main media narrative through the production of digital artifacts. The design intervention we describe, aimed at counteracting the racist stereotyping which targets the local Chinese community of Bolzano. The project People’s Republic of Bolzano reshapes the identity of the local Chinese community through digital media, in order to restore more transparent and balanced information, allowing a broader audience to inform itself on such a complex and multifaceted issue. This small project is part of an emergent phenomenon to counterbalance misrepresentation, in this case over the issue of migration.