Alexandra Bekker is a strategic designer, researcher, and educator working at the intersection of design and social theory. Her practice explores how design can seed alternative imaginaries and support meaningful transformations towards more just and care-centered futures. She is a lecturer at Parsons School of Design, and has collaborated with organizations including Dark Matter Labs, Berggruen Institute, RadicalxChange, Partners for a New Economy, Omidyar Network, OECD, and UN agencies.
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2025
PROJECT
An evolving archive of case studies that map the shifting architectures, imaginaries and experiments shaping how life on Earth may be organized, sustained and represented.
Dark Matter Labs, Berggruen Institute
2025
WRITING
An article on the ecological, geopolitical and cultural interdependencies in the Hindu Kush Himalayas and innovations for polycentric systems of governance.
Prateek Shankar
2025
PROGRAM
A public innovation initiative reimagining governance as something built with and for relationships. It proposes a public design practice focused on shaping the psycho-social conditions that make policy solutions possible, legitimate and widely supported.
Dark Matter Labs, Viable Cities, Net Zero Cities
2024
PROGRAM
A program seeding a coalition of cross-disciplinary actors imagining and prototyping a new direction for property and ownership in the 21st century.
Dark Matter Labs, RadicalxChange, Stanford University, Rockefeller Foundation, Omidyar Network
2024
Writing
An article on the limits of traditional property rights for emerging digital technologies, and the case for democratic governance of data access and use.
Indy Johar
2024
WRITING
An article on the multifaceted housing crisis and its intertwined economic, social and ecological origins and impacts.
Indy Johar
2024
PROJECT
A speculative design exploring how AI and advanced video analytics could enable urban sensing infrastructures that support conditions for care in cities.
Dark Matter Labs
2024
WRITING
A provocation paper on preemptively shaping the imaginative and political space for future crises by seeding proofs of possibility that make alternative forms of governance feel inevitable and inspiring.
Zehra Zaidi
2024
WRITING
A policy paper exploring new models of land ownership and tenure, reframing land rights, and the infrastructure needed for effective land governance.
Dark Matter Labs, Scottish Land Commission
2023
PROGRAM
An ecosystem of “real utopias”—experiments and experiences that model new ways of relating, valuing beyond money and markets, and strengthening democratic agency.
Dark Matter Labs, Partners for a New Economy
2023
PROJECT
A systems-based approach to shifting institutional dynamics toward care, using contextual indicators and hybrid collective sensemaking methods.
Presented at the Management and Social Justice Conference 2023
2022
PROJECT
A digital platform where economic theories and speculative futures converge to explore what care-centered economies could look and feel like.
2022
PROJECT
A feminist speculative design reimagining how care is valued and invested in across public and private domains.
Presented at the Good Interventions Exhibition 2022
2022
RESEARCH
A practical, systemic framework for embedding innovation in policymaking and administration, strengthening governments’ capacity to adapt to uncertainty and build more resilient solutions.
Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, OECD
2022
PROJECT
An actionable tool for senior officials to identify opportunities for improvement in public sector systems and translate innovation commitments into concrete action.
Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, OECD
2021
PROJECT
A podcast series using co-created storytelling as a participatory method for data generation, aimed at informing policy, research, and programming on youth sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Share-Net Netherlands, Stories to Action
2020
PROJECT
A digital storytelling platform created by and for youth to amplify marginalized voices and catalyze action on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Shake the Dust
2019
UN/LIKEMINDS
PROJECT
An action-research project exploring innovation in international development, producing workshops and open-source toolkits.
2018
EVENT
A co-creation workshop at the United Nations bringing policymakers and youth together to frame challenges around youth participation and prototype solutions.
Deloitte, UNFPA, OHCHR
2017
SEXUAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
TALK
A panel discussion with Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gillmore and Danish Minister for Equal Opportunities Karen Ellemann on youth leadership in sustainable development.
2016
PROGRAM
An international program building capacity of human rights organizations to use social listening for data-driven advocacy.
Amplify Change, RNW Media, CHOICE
2015
POSITIVE MONOLOGUES
EVENT
A storytelling event for World Aids Day giving young activists a platform to share lived experiences and best practices for tackling HIV discrimination.
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zambia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNAIDS
2014
CITIZENS OF NOWHERE
THESIS
A research project exploring the lived realities of stateless women in northern Thailand and co-creating recommendations for anti-trafficking policy and interventions
Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women