Gabriel Fontana is a social designer who investigates systems of value, norms and knowledge production. By understanding the body as a learning tool, his design practice investigates how our bodies perform, internalise and reproduce social norms. He proposes ways that this can be unlearnt through new pedagogies, activities and actions to imagine and introduce new value systems.

Sport and physical education have been his main field of research for the past three years. In this context, Gabriel develops alternative team sport games that position Physical Education as queer pedagogy. His work is applied both in daily social settings (e.g. primary schools, sport clubs) and academic contexts as well as in cultural institutions (e.g. BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht; Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht). He graduated cum laude from the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL) with a master’s in Social Design and holds a bachelor’s degree from Saint-Etienne Higher School of Art and Design (FR). His work has been awarded by the multiple design prizes (Rotterdam New Talent Award 2018, Paris Design Forum 2018) and diverse design grants (Stimuleringsfonds, CityLab10 and CBK Rotterdam).