portraits of lucy

Lucy is a designer with a focus on interaction design and ecological technology. Her works are sociopolitical and intrinsically optimistic. She builds prototypes to illustrate bold alternatives to the present and make choices experienceable that are difficult to imagine.

Lucy is a current MS student at Tangible Media, MIT. She holds a Masters degree in Industrial Design from the University of Applied Arts (class Anab Jain) and was a visiting student at University of Lapland, Finland (Arctic Design).

Besides thinking about joyful interactions with machines, multispecies justice in a time of climate change, she is gradually improving her creative coding, knitting and swimming skills.

Her cooperation partners and clients includes Sámi Education Institute, Wirtschaftsagentur Wien and Het Nieuwe Instituut. Her works are part of international exhibitions and festivals: London Design Week (GB), Vienna Design Week (AT), Ars Electronica (AT), Nordic Film Festival NO), Museum of Applied Arts (AT), Triennale di Milano (IT), Shenzhen Biennale (CN).

Chronology

2024

 

💼 Miami Design Week: Liminal Cycles - interactive bio-based Installation, commissioned by Crafting Plasti!cs and worked on technical implementation of interaction design

 

📸 Brute Force, film essay by Felix Lenz on Terraforming through Technology. I worked on the set design, and the film is now broadcast on ORF (Austrian National Public. Broadcaster)

 

🖇️ Paper in submission: CHI 2025 → X. Xiao, H. Noh, A. Lefevre, L. Li, Holly McKee, A. Alargosh, H. Ishii: ReMirrorFugue: Examining the emotional experience of presence and illusory communications across time

 

🖇️ Paper in submission: PRESENCE JOURNAL → H. Ishii, D. Pillis, P. Pataranutaporn, X. Xiao, H. Noh, L. Li, A. Alargoosh, Jb Labrune: TeleAbsence - A vision of afterlife telepresence

2023 - MIT Media Lab

⭐ Moved to Cambridge, MA to study at the Tangible Media Group, MediaLab, MIT

 

📸 Feature in a Dezeen article.

 

🏆 Fulbright Scholar of 2023 and currently in the application process for a graduate study in the US.

2022 - graduating and ready for more

🖼️ “Interspecies Play” continues to travel to Shenzhen Biennale or Urbanism/Architecture (UABB) with the support of the fantastic team of Het Nieuwe Instituut.

 

🏆 “Interspecies Play” exhibited in the Netherlands Pavilion as part of the 23rd International Triennale Milan and the Pavilion was awarded with Golden Bee for best exhibition.

 

💼 “Dumpling Tour” commissioned by Vienna Design Week 2022 to give an insight into the Austro-Chinese community in the focus district Mariahilf

 

📸 “Navigational Superpowers” shown at Vienna Design Week 2022 and featured in orf.at

 

💼 Studio Assistant at Studio Dankl working on prototyping and concepts for Co-Working.

 

2021 - movies and northern lights

🖼️ “Dear Satellite” screened at Nordic Youth Festival in Tromso, Norway and I felt honoured to be invited to travel there in person and see the my movie on the big screen.

 

💼 “Talking House” was realised with the support of the Gepäcksausgabe Residency in Glarus, Switzerland

 

💼 Co-curated and designed the exhibition “The Ideal Eating Experience” with Studio Dankl

 

🖼️ “Dear Satellite” screened at Brooklyn Sci-Fi Film Festival, New York

 

⭐ Moving for 5 month to live inside the artic circle for an exchange study at University of Lapland, Department Arctic Design, learnt wonderful group of people all sharing the motto “Live your life on speed mode”

 

2020 - pandemic year

🏆 Leichte Muh packaging design competition, Top 8

 

🏆 Won the competition “Stromkilometer” and invited to design the Highschool Graduation present for Schulschiff

 

📸 “Hydroponics with Lucy” exhibited at Subscribe Climate Care at MAK Museum of applied arts and featured in Standard

 

2019 - participatory design

🏆 “Alsergrund im Schaukasten” also exhibited at Vienna Design Week and won the “Erste Bank Mehrwert Prize”

 

🖼️ “Credit Criminals” exhibited at Vienna Design Week

 

🏆 Awarded the “U19 Golden Nica” for the set Design of the Mini Series “Dschungel”

 

🖼️ “Illegal Rain” became part of the permanent exhibition at Design Labor MAK, Museum für angewandte Kunst

 

2018 -

🖼️ “Illegal Rain” exhibited at London Design Biennale in Somerset House and representing the Austrian Pavillon

 

2017 - where everything began

🎨 began studies in Industrial Design at University of applied arts in the class of Anab Jain.

 

⭐ Highschool graduation with excellence from Schulschiff *a school floating on the Danube* with focus on Spanish and English

2008

⭐ chose the nickname: Lucy

 

⭐ moved to Vienna, Austria

⭐ born in Shanghai, China

 
 
 

  • © Lucy Li 2025