In 1994 we came to the United Kingdom from Argentina as young design professionals in search of opportunities our country could not provide due to a prolonged period of political and financial instability. At the time, little did we know that our educational heritage would colour and guide the development of our design practice in the UK throughout the years to come. Ours is a journey of lineage, beginning with the orldviews and teachings that were first introduced at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm (HfG), and then advanced at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP) in Argentina where we studied. The philosophy of Ulm had a great influence on design education and design discourse in Latin America (Fernández 2006). During the 1960s and ’70s, design in Argentina (and other Latin American countries) was at the centre of a socio-political project for economic autonomy that sought to stimulate rapid development through industrialisation, in order to decrease fiscal deficit by reducing imports. To achieve this, it was necessary to create skilled jobs; and consolidating the design profession (both practice and education) became crucial if the country was to become this kind of economically competitive nation. At that time, the HfG was advancing the notion of ‘design leadership’ as a way to push for systemic change, dismissing the idea that design was purely an applied form of aesthetics (which was felt diminished the role of the designer) and advocated for design to be viewed as an applied human and social science (Findeli 2001). As such, the Ulm model was seen as highly relevant to the Argentine context because it offered an operative, concrete and systematic way to implement the independence- through industrialization that Latin America was seeking (Fernández 2006). Emerging university departments and programmes in design across Latin America were keen to adopt this view of design as ‘a science that could support industrialisation’, which was regarded as instrumental to the continent’s social, cultural and economic success (Fernández 2006). However, this vision for socio-economic autonomy was never fulfilled, due to the political turbulence that Argentina (and the continent) suffered during the 1970s and early 1980s. Starting in 1975, Argentina endured a long, dark period of harsh, consecutive authoritarian military governments that culminated with the Falklands War in 1983. During the ‘de facto’ (dictatorship) years, educational institutions became highly politicised as students and staff persistently engaged in public protests and demonstrations, demanding the reinstatement of a democratic government. In an attempt to control dissent, the ‘junta’ (a military group leading the authoritarian government) implemented deep reforms within the universities, thwarting critical thinking by closing down those departments in the arts and social sciences they considered to be threats. Hundreds of students, staff and other intellectuals – including journalists, writers, rights activists and artists – were relentlessly targeted during the ‘dirty war’. Many were assassinated, abducted or forced into exile (Moyano 1995).