Researching the emotional and cultural life of futures under pressure.
We use digital ethnography, simulation, and speculative and pluriversal design to investigate how communities and cultures adapt, resist, and reimagine possibilities under systemic stress — from AI automation to housing precarity and climate retreat. We work critically and creatively to help organisations see beyond change to what truly matters.
ABOUT
FOUNDER BIO
Leon Tan, PhD
Leon is an interdisciplinary researcher exploring the emotional and cultural dimensions of systemic change. His work blends digital ethnography, simulation, and speculative and pluriversal design to surface insights often missed by conventional research.
STUDIO PHILOSOPHY
Superfutures Research is founded on the belief that emotional and cultural life is central to how systems change. We investigate how people make meaning, adapt, and resist under conditions such as housing precarity, urbanisation, digital automation, and climate retreat. Our approach combines digital ethnography, simulation, and speculative and pluriversal design to open perspectives often excluded from conventional research. Working critically and creatively, we help organisations recognise not only what is changing, but what matters, what is at risk, and what other futures remain possible.
PROJECTS &
PUBLICATIONS
Facing a complex problem? We partner with researchers, strategists, and systems thinkers to navigate what matters most.
2025
Superfutures Research. (2025). Beyond the score: Cultural trust, relational risk, and strategic foresight in digital finance (Version 1.0). Superfutures Research.
Superfutures Research. (2025). Beyond the score: Personas and scenarios (Version 1.0). Superfutures Research.
Tan, L., White, T., Renata, H., Lamwilai, P., De Groot, C., Smith, E., & Goldsmith, A. (2025, February 25–27). Decolonial design and Indigenous placemaking in the Wairaka Precinct [Poster presentation]. Thinking, Learning and Doing: Plural Ways of Design – Nineteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.
Tan, L., Madhukailya, M., & Bogdan, C. (2025). Assembling desire in art and design education. In M. Sharma & A. Alexander (Eds.), The Routledge companion to decolonizing art, craft & visual culture education. Routledge.
Tan, L., White, T., Renata, H., Lamwilai, P., De Groot, C., Smith, E., & Goldsmith, A. (2025, February 25–27). Decolonial design and Indigenous placemaking in the Wairaka Precinct [Poster presentation]. Thinking, Learning and Doing: Plural Ways of Design – Nineteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.
Tan, L., White, T., Renata, H., Lamwilai, P., De Groot, C., Smith, E., & Goldsmith, A. (2025, February 25–27). Decolonial design and Indigenous placemaking in the Wairaka Precinct [Poster presentation]. Thinking, Learning and Doing: Plural Ways of Design – Nineteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore.
2023
Tan, L., Ferguson, G., Hung, B., Lamwilai, P., Ngaropo, P., Renata, H., White, T., Wood, R., & Woodruffe, P. (2023). From urban development to the pluriverse: Ontological design for natural and cultural heritage. In D. De Sainz Molestina, L. Galluzzo, F. Rizzo, & D. Spallazzo (Eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-changing design, 9–13 October, Milan, Italy.
Tan, L., & White, T. (2023). Raranga and tikanga pā harakeke: An Indigenous model of socially engaged art and education. In M. Sharma & A. Alexander (Eds.), The Routledge companion to decolonizing art, craft & visual culture education. Routledge.
2021
The Routledge Companion to Art in the Public Realm.
New York: Routledge.
