A symposium presented by the RISD-BROWN Critical Design Research Initiative.

Friday, April 24, 2015, 9:30–5:30 p.m.
The Chace Center, RISD Museum of Art

Susan Yelavich, Design Studies, Parsons
Paolo Cardini, Industrial Design, RISD
Cameron Tonkinwisev, Design Studies, Carnegie Mellon
Charlie Cannon, Industrial Design, RISD
Damian White, History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences, RISD
Jose Itzigsohn, Sociology, Brown
Caroline Woolard, Art Workers and Freelance Unions
Colin McSwiggen, Jacobin Magazine
Ijlal Muzaffar, History of Art and Visual Culture, RISD
Yuriko Saito, History, Philosophy and Social Science, RISD
Daniel Peltz, Film, Animation and Video, RISD
Bhrigupati Singh, Anthropology, Brown
Ian Gonsher, Engineering, Brown
Anne Tate, Architecture, RISD
Kathleen Grevers, Apparel Design, RISD
Beth Mosher, Industrial Design, RISD
Erik Anderson, History of Art and Visual Culture, RISD
Lili Herman, DESINE-LAB, RISD

Critical Design Critical Futures: A Symposium

In the face of widening social inequality, democratic decline and a basic erosion of the ecological health of the planet, many sections of design and the social sciences appear poised to take a critical turn. Emerging debates around “speculative design”, “re-directive practices”, “discursive design”, “adversarial design” and “transitional design” all indicate an deep impatience with the status quo, a desire to challenge social and environmental injustices and a growing sense that things need to change and change quickly. Many currents of the social sciences would appear to be keen to move from endless deconstruction to reconstruction.

Critical Design/Critical Futures will begin a conversation about the potential for creative dialogue and critique between critical design and the critical social sciences. In this symposium we will explore the different ways in which forms of critical design are now being conceptualized and enacted. We will think about the designer as worker and workers as self-organizing creative designers. We will critically interrogate the aesthetics of obfuscation that surrounds mainstream design. Finally, Critical Design/Critical Futures will consider how critical design, design activism and design led social innovation might productively open up new horizons for speculative futures.

Tickets available HERE