PAPANEK SYMPOSIUM 2019, REAL WORLD: DESIGN, POLITICS, FUTURE

26 – 27 September 2019

Almeida Garrett Municipal Library, Porto, Portugal 

We are excited to be participating at Porto Design Biennale in the Papanek Symposium curated by Alison J. Clarke and Francisco Laranjo. Design is in crisis: Or, at the very least, in massive transition, exploring and rediscovering its potential during deeply problematic times. Under the theme “Real World: Design, Politics, Future”, this year the Papanek Symposium, investigates design’s inherent tensions in the context of rising global far-right populism and the asphyxiating manipulation of information in a post-truth era.

What potential is there for envisaging alternative political futures, and what role might design, and its politics, have in contributing to those futures? Strands of contemporary design practice proffer a critical, and often an apocalyptic and dystopian vision of the future, while others happily conform to a financial system that demands a new consumable product for each and every multifarious context. The stakes for design have never been higher, as its interventions are dispersed across all aspects of the informational, virtual and material strata that shape our real worlds. Our Founder Natsay Audrey Chieza will contribute to the program of talks on the 26 September with a presentation that asks how a new generation of industrialised biological systems will intersect with a society in transition.