Exhibition
Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design
Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
29 September 2018 – 10 March 2019
Curated by Prof. Alison J. Clarke with Amelie Klein, Vitra Design Museum and curatorial advisor Jan Boelen, Design Academy Eindhoven.
Papanek Foundation archival management, Dr. Leah Armstrong
The Papanek Foundation presents the international travelling exhibition Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design, co-curated and organised with Vitra Design Museum in Weil Am Rhein, Germany. The expansive show presents varied and previously unseen materials from the Papanek Foundation archive pertaining to design activist Victor Papanek’s lifelong career, highlighting the crucial theme of design as a political and social tool. Alongside the exploration of Papanek’s links with key thinkers and design figures, ranging from media theorist Marshall
McLuhan, maverick futurist Buckminster Fuller to leading feminist graphic designer Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, the exhibition casts light on the legacy of 1960s and 1970s activism through the presentation of contemporary exhibits dealing with politically pertinent issues ranging from state violence, to climate change, bio-synthetics, and the precariousness of citizenship.
Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design features work from cutting edge practitioners such as: Forensic Architecture; Natsai Audrey Chieza; Flui Colectivo; Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg; Femke Herregraven; NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism/Hypen-Labs; Lucy and Jorge Orta; Tomás Saraceno; Maya Jay Varadaraj.
This exhibition is a cooperation between the Vitra Design Museum and the Barcelona Design Museum, in collaboration with the Victor J. Papanek Foundation, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Public Lecture
Design Revolution
Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
22 November 2018, 18:30
This open lecture, by Alison J. Clarke, co-curator of the exhibition Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design, explores the design revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s when Papanek’s book Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change emerged as a manifesto for the politics of design and sustainability. Looking beyond the clichéd images of student activism and hippiedom, the lecture frames Papanek’s design, networks and interventions in the context of the late Cold War geo-political historical context; arguing that design’s newly honed political imperative was borne of the U.S. military-industrial complex, as much of idealistic counter cultures.
Interview: ‘Design Is Never Neutral’
Workshop
Digital Currencies and Smart Contracts: Bitcoin, Blockchain & Co.
University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Design History and Theory, Seminar Room
10 January 2019, 10:00-12:30
Guest hosted by Anita Posch, organised by Martina Grünewald
A highlight of this semester’s seminar “Material Culture I: Designing Value(s)”, Bitcoin and Blockchain educator Anita Posch guest hosts an open workshop session on digital currencies and smart contracts. We will discuss key questions cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies raise with regard to contemporary as well as future forms of collaborative design practice, open innovation, economic development and the internet as a facilitator and guardian of social democracy. Punctual attendance is critical as Ms. Posch will take us on a short walking tour to the next Bitcoin ATM.
Papanek Symposium 2019
Real World: Design, Politics, Future
Porto Design Biennale, Portugal
26 – 27 September 2019
Organised by Prof. Alison J. Clarke and Francisco Laranjo, Modes of Criticism
The Papanek Symposium 2019 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? Debating the future of design: The places, ideas and means by which the politics of design, and the design of politics come together, speakers include Ramia Mazé, Flavia Dzodan, Akwugo Emejulu, Ahmed Ansari, Cameron Tonkinwise. A series of workshops and open forums will be led by the Decolonising Design Group.