Tentacles Making Fists: Re-Imagining and Neuro-Futurising Leadership, with Dr Kai Syng Tan is a review of my book ‘Neuro-Futurism and Re-Imagining Leadership’ by Dr Adam McDade, published 03 December 2024 on the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design CHEAD website.

CITATION: McDade, Adam. 2024. ‘Tentacles Making Fists: Re-Imagining and Neuro-Futurising Leadership, with Dr Kai Syng Tan’. Council for Higher Education in Art & Design CHEAD (blog). 3 December 2024. https://www.chead.ac.uk/tentacles-making-fists-re-imagining-and-neuro-futurising-leadership-with-dr-kai-syng-tan/.

  • Screenshot of Instagram post by Adam 04/12/2024
  • Extract from book review by Dr Adam McDade
  • Extract from book review by Dr Adam McDade
  • Adam McDade and his creative research
  • ScreenshotExtract from book review by Dr Adam McDade
  • ScreenshExtract from book review by Dr Adam McDadeot
  • Drawings by Adam McDade
  • Extract from book review by Dr Adam McDade
  • Extract from book review by Dr Adam McDade
  • Dr Adam McDade biography
  • The 1180-word review highlights how the book critiques traditional, exclusionary paradigms of knowledge construction within academia and society, and advocates for alternative leadership frameworks that prioritise marginalised perspectives, arguing for a more equitable, liberated approach to knowledge dissemination. It points out parallels with the work of design thought-leaders like Dr Dori Tunstall, as well as the Adam’s own lived experience as a working class white male scholar cast outside of the Ivory Tower.
  • ADAM McDADE is an illustrator, designer, tattooist, and independent scholar from Sunderland, based in Manchester, UK. He holds a PhD in Design (2021) and produced the first ever piece of academic research to utilise tattooing practice as a research methodology.
  • CHEAD is the UK representative body for 70 Higher Education institutions (HEIs) in art, design, creative media, and related disciplines, where Kai is an elected trustee.
  • Order book here which was published 07/2024 (hardcover with 39 colour plates GBP £34.99; e-book £27.99). Find out more about the UK launch 09/2024. Join 2025 international book tour. Read book review by tattooist-design-scholar Dr Adam McDade (12/2024). Get in touch to make a booking for a performance-lecture, provocation, discussion, book signing and more.