Profile
    Jihyun Park is an information designer and researcher pursuing a PhD at Simon Fraser University (SFU)’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology, while also teaching at Northeastern University’s Vancouver campus. Her research explores co-speculative design and social practices, using information design and data practices to engage communities in collectively envisioning sustainable, ecologically healthier futures.

    As a researcher and designer with Imaginative Methods Lab at SFU, she fosters deeper and more democratic forms of imagination through creative tools and strategies, supporting navigation through crises and contributing to eco-social transformation.
       
Email, Linkedin ↗

Education
2022-Current PhD Candidate
Simon Fraser University, Surrey, Canada
School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Research title: “Design Sustainable Value-driven Information(SVI) through data visualization and Co-speculative design processes”
Supervisor: Professor. Gillian Russell

2019-2021 Master of Design
Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, Canada
Interdisciplinary Design, Faculty of Design + Dynamic Media

2002-2009 Bachelor of Media
Ajou University, Suwon, South Korea
Digital Media (Communication Design), Department of Digital Media, College of Information Technology


2002-2009 Bachelor of Arts
Ajou University, Suwon, South Korea
Psychology, Department of Psychology, College of Social Science
Employment
2024 - Current
Part-Time Lecturer
Information Design and Datavisualization,
College of Arts Media and Design,
Northeastern University, Vancouver, Canada

2025
Sessional Instructor,
Information Futures Stream, Faculty of Design + Dynamic Media
Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, Canada

2022 - Current
Design Researcher
Imaginative Methods Lab,
Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada

2022 - Current
Research/Teaching Assistant
Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada

2015 - 2019
Founder and Graphic Designer 
JOHA Communication Design Studio, Seoul, South Korea

2014 - 2019
Founder and Creative Director 
Per.Brick Public Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea

2012 - 2014
Senior Communication / Interaction Designer  
V Lab, New Media Group, VINYL I Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea 

Press
Russell, G., Reilly, K., Park, J., & Thu, L. (2026). Scaffolding Oceans Futures Literacy: Design for embedded, embodied, and emergent thinking. Design Research Society (DRS) 2026.  Edinburgh, UK. 

Russell, G., Thu, L., Park, J., & Reilly, K. (2025). Designing Ocean Futures Literacies: Reimagining the shoreline cleanup as a tool for ‘amphibious thinking.’ Companion Publication of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 20–22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715668.3734161

Reilly, K., Russell, G., Thu, L., & Park, J. (2025). Situated Design and False Creek Futures: Relationality Engagement and Creativity in Eco-social Information Systems. Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 944–958. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735835

Park, J., & Russell, G. (2025). Data by Me, You, and Us: Exploring Data Transformation for Eco-Social Changes. Somatechnics 15.1 (2025): 119–139. https://doi.org/10.3366/soma.2025.045. Edinburgh University Press.

Park, J. (2024). Empowering Communities to Combat Plastic Pollution: Citizen-Engaged Data Embodiment and Co-Speculative Design Methods. In Creative Approaches to Community-Engaged Research. Community-Engaged Research Initiative(CERi), Simon Fraser University.

Reilly, K., Russell, G., Horst, R., Park, J., Shaw, R., & Vidakis, M. (2023). Futuring Data For Eco-Social Health. In Resisting Data Colonialism: A practical intervention (Vol. 50, pp. 69–74). Institute of Network Cultures.

Park, J. (2023). Alternative Design Practice Mode: Ways for Shifting Perspectives in Design Practice for Ecological Thinking. Design Principles and Practices: An International Journal—Annual Review, 16(1), 41–52. https://doi.org/10.18848/1833-1874/cgp/v16i01/41-52


Jihyun Park. JohaInformation/Communication DesignerDesign Researcher/Educator

Information.
Data. Design.
Eco-Social Change.
Co-Speculative Design, Participatory Design, Information Design, Data Visualization, Communication Design, Eco-Social Practice, Citizen-engaged DataDesigning tools for rethinking, reimagining, and becoming—together.Previous Works 
Graphic Design Projects ↗
Video/Media Art Works  ↗

9

Vancouver, Canada / April 2026

Practice of Making Kin in a Plastic Terrapolis - Workbook Keywords

Information design, reflective data practice, more-than-human centred design, co-speculative design, eco-social practice Work Type

Workbook/Workshop
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Design/Research: Jihyun Park
9.1
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    Situated within the conditions of the Anthropocene—or what Donna Haraway (2016) reframes as the Chthulucene—this project understands plastic not as inert waste but as an active material force that reshapes ecological and multispecies relations beyond its moment of use (Max Liboiron, 2016). The Practice of Making Kin in a Plastic Terrapolis takes the relational framework of Terrapolis as its grounding, emphasizing coexistence within uneven and damaged worlds where humans, non-humans, and synthetic materials are deeply entangled. 
    The project offers a series of relational, situated practices that participants enact over time, using the kit as a prompt to observe, sense, and reflect on their everyday entanglements with multispecies and material companions. Through these practices, the kit supports participants in perceiving connectivity across scales and actors, cultivating relational awareness, shared responsibility, and an embodied understanding of world-making as an ongoing, collective process.

8

Vancouver, Canada / April 2026

Practice of Making Kin in a Plastic Terrapolis - Episode 2 Keywords

Information design, reflective data practice, more-than-human centred design, eco-social practice Work Type

Probe/Practice Kit
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Design/Research: Jihyun Park
8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
8.6
    Situated within the conditions of the Anthropocene—or what Donna Haraway (2016) reframes as the Chthulucene—this project understands plastic not as inert waste but as an active material force that reshapes ecological and multispecies relations beyond its moment of use (Max Liboiron, 2016). The Practice of Making Kin in a Plastic Terrapolis takes the relational framework of Terrapolis as its grounding, emphasizing coexistence within uneven and damaged worlds where humans, non-humans, and synthetic materials are deeply entangled. 
    The project offers a series of relational, situated practices that participants enact over time, using the kit as a prompt to observe, sense, and reflect on their everyday entanglements with multispecies and material companions. Through these practices, the kit supports participants in perceiving connectivity across scales and actors, cultivating relational awareness, shared responsibility, and an embodied understanding of world-making as an ongoing, collective process.

7

Vancouver, Canada /  April 2026

A Field Guide to Monsters of Marine Debris
Keywords

Ocean futures literacies, speculative design, eco-social change, marine plastics, shoreline cleanups, citizen science, data methods
Work Type

Zine
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In collaboration with the Ocean Futures team at the Imaginative Methods Lab: Gillian Russell, Katherine Reilly, Jihyun Park, and Lauren Thu
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7.6
    The field guide to Monsters of Marine Debris is a guide that documents and reframes encounters with marine debris along the shorelines of Madeira, positioning acts of noticing as a critical method for understanding human–ocean entanglements. Drawing from situated observations conducted along the island’s northern and southern coasts, the publication traces how fragments of plastic and discarded materials—shaped by ocean currents, industrial systems, and everyday practices—accumulate at the edge between land and sea. 
    Rather than presenting marine debris as isolated waste, the field guide conceptualizes these remnants as “monsters”: hybrid assemblages composed of material fragments, the human habits that generate them, and the ecological threats they enact. Through this lens, debris is treated as an active presence that moves, gathers, and transforms coastal environments. Developed through collective fieldwork with citizen speculators in July 2025, the field guide invites readers to engage with marine debris as a relational phenomenon, making visible the otherwise obscured connections between distant systems, local shorelines, and the lingering material traces of human values.

6

Vancouver, Canada / Feburary 2026

Practice of Making Kin in a Plastic Terrapolis - Episode 1
Keywords

Information design, reflective data practice, more-than-human centred design, eco-social practice
Work Type

Probe/Practice Kit
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Design/Research: Jihyun Park
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6.2
6.3
    Situated within the conditions of the Anthropocene—or what Donna Haraway (2016) reframes as the Chthulucene—this project understands plastic not as inert waste but as an active material force that reshapes ecological and multispecies relations beyond its moment of use (Max Liboiron, 2016). The Practice of Making Kin in a Plastic Terrapolis takes the relational framework of Terrapolis as its grounding, emphasizing coexistence within uneven and damaged worlds where humans, non-humans, and synthetic materials are deeply entangled. 
    The project offers a series of relational, situated practices that participants enact over time, using the kit as a prompt to observe, sense, and reflect on their everyday entanglements with multispecies and material companions. Through these practices, the kit supports participants in perceiving connectivity across scales and actors, cultivating relational awareness, shared responsibility, and an embodied understanding of world-making as an ongoing, collective process.

5

Madeira, Portugal 2025

Reimagining the shoreline cleanup as a tool for 'amphibious thinking'
Keywords

Ocean futures literacies, speculative design, eco-social change, marine plastics, shoreline cleanups, citizen science, data methods
Work Type

Workshop and Workshop Kit
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In collaboration with the Ocean Futures team at the Imaginative Methods Lab: Gillian Russell, Katherine Reilly, Jihyun Park, and Lauren Thu
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    In an era where data proliferation often substitutes for genuine understanding, this workshop challenges participants to explore alternative modes of environmental engagement beyond traditional knowledge acquisition. We invite participants to question: How does knowing something truly catalyze change? And more critically, how might we move beyond the paradigm of data-driven knowledge to embrace more nuanced, collective approaches to environmental stewardship? 
    Drawing from our ongoing research on Community Ocean Futures: Activating Data for Eco-social Change, in Vancouver, Canada, this workshop introduces participatory methods for engaging with marine environments and ocean conservation. Our approach deliberately moves away from conventional citizen science initiatives that prioritize data collection and quantification, instead emphasizing what we term "amphibious thinking": a mode of engagement that embraces precarity, multiplicity, and collective imagination.

4

Boston, US / 2024

Collective Ways: Our Plastic Worlds Ver.02
Keywords

Co-speculative design, information design, reflective data practice, data methods, eco-social practice
Work Type

Workshop and Workshop Kit
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Lead Design/Research: Jihyun Park
In collaboration with Gillian Russell and Samein Shamsher
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    Plastic waste remains one of the most pressing environmental challenges, posing significant risks to both human health and marine ecosystems, and continuing to intensify despite growing efforts to restrict single-use plastics. Citizen science initiatives have played an important role in addressing this issue by engaging communities in observing, recording, and removing plastic from marine environments to inform environmental solutions and policy. However, this project argues that such approaches often fall short in fostering meaningful behaviour change, as the data produced tends to function primarily as an analytical resource rather than a catalyst for social transformation. 
    Shifting this perspective, the project explores the potential of citizen-generated data to operate as a medium for change by foregrounding participants’ reflections, emotions, and situated insights into plastic consumption and waste. Drawing on the concept of meshwork to understand data as interwoven with everyday life, the project proposes an embodied approach to tracking plastic consumption through a carefully designed data-tracking kit and co-speculative practices, positioning data as an active force in experiential learning, environmental engagement, and creating collective actions.

3

Vancouver, Canada / 2024

See-Shore
Keywords

Information design, Situaltional/Place-based design practice,  Futuring tools, Ocean Futures Literacy
Work Type

Public Installation
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In collaboration with the Ocean Futures team at the Imaginative Methods Lab: Gillian Russell, Katherine Reilly, Jihyun Park, and Lauren Thu
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    For Ocean Week 2024 The Imaginative Methods Lab set up the Ocean Futures Imagination Station Hub (OFISH) on Vancouver’s Sea Wall. The installation featured a series of activities which prompted visitors and passersby to think creatively and imaginatively about the future of the ocean. Designed as an Interpretation Centre of the future, OFISH merges scientific fact with creative speculation.
   Visitors were invited to engage with custom futuring tools, such as The False Creek Observatory – a map depicting signals of change, Conversation Cards- depicting reflections on human-nature relationships, and Fast Forward – a series of community visons for futures of False Creek.

2

Vancouver, Canada / 2024

Collective Ways: Our Plastic Worlds Ver. 01
Keywords

Information design, reflective data practice, transformable data, eco-social practice
Work Type

Reflective Data Tracking Kit
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Design/Research: Jihyun Park
2.1
2.2
    Plastic waste remains one of the most pressing environmental challenges, posing significant risks to both human health and marine ecosystems, and continuing to intensify despite growing efforts to restrict single-use plastics. Citizen science initiatives have played an important role in addressing this issue by engaging communities in observing, recording, and removing plastic from marine environments to inform environmental solutions and policy. However, this project argues that such approaches often fall short in fostering meaningful behaviour change, as the data produced tends to function primarily as an analytical resource rather than a catalyst for social transformation. 
    Shifting this perspective, the project explores the potential of citizen-generated data to operate as a medium for change by foregrounding participants’ reflections, emotions, and situated insights into plastic consumption and waste. Drawing on the concept of meshwork to understand data as interwoven with everyday life, the project proposes an embodied approach to tracking plastic consumption through a carefully designed data-tracking kit and co-speculative practices, positioning data as an active force in experiential learning, environmental engagement, and creating collective actions.

1

Vancouver, Canada / 2024

My Shoreline Cleanup
Keywords

Information design, Ocean Futures Literacies, Citizen Science,  Reflection Tools, Participatory Practice, Environmental Awareness
Work Type

Probe Kit
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In collaboration with the Ocean Futures team at the Imaginative Methods Lab: Gillian Russell, Jihyun Park, Katherine Reilly, Ryland Shaw, and Melanie Vidakis
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    The project proposed a process for reimagining shoreline cleanups as a practice that cultivates ocean futures literacies and builds capacity and collective sense making toward ocean sustainability. A group of citizen-scientists were invited to conduct their own shoreline cleanups while testing out a series of custom reflection tools, props, and activities.
    The completed kits communicated their current understanding the life of marine debris, as well as implicitly unveiling the disconnection people have with their own interconnectedness with and responsibility to marine ecosystems.
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