Valiz

A selected history of socially committed design strategies within the Western tradition, from the past 150 years Within the design discipline, calls for sustainability and social responsibility have become some of the most common rallying cries of the past decade, generating countless new products, materials and technologies?all designed to change the course of our future. Adjectives like “sustainable,” “green” and “eco” describe this new wave of socially committed design. But though today’s conditions are urgent and particular, the ideologies behind these new products are often not totally new, but rather a part of design history. Contemporary sustainable design is just the newest chapter of a story that stretches back throughout the previous centuries. The Responsible Object presents a selected history of socially committed design strategies within the Western design tradition of roughly the last 150 years, from William Morris to Victor Papanek, and from VKhUTEMAS to FabLab. It includes about 20 interstitial mini-posters with slogans from the text, printed on different colored papers.

A guidebook for artists and those aspiring to be artists "Visual artist" is a term with manifold variations and meanings. But how, as an artist (or designer, photographer or other "independent creator"), do you become who you are and who you would like to be? How can you guide your artistic practice? Plan and Play, Play and Plan invites the artist to explore their own questions about their work, using analytical models to help them determine where they stand and what they stand for. The author Janwillem Schrofer was director of Amsterdam's Rijksakademie from 1982 to 2010, and thus knows from practical experience the complexity of the artist's dilemmas and how important self-reflection is for artistic practice. Looking back over his pedagogical experience and assembling notes and pointers gathered from interviews with a wide variety of artists, Schrofer has developed an appealing guidebook intended for artists and those who wish to become artists.

Fun, poetical and inspiring challenges for teaching the arts?for students of all ages and teachers of all disciplines The almost 100 arts assignments compiled in this instructive new volume are designed to foster cross-disciplinary creativity in the visual arts, performance, theater, music and design. Everyone who teaches the arts knows the value of the assignment that is seemingly simple but which nonetheless challenges participants, students and pupils to the maximum. In Wicked Arts Assignments the tasks are organized around the following themes: Go Public, Narrate, Remix, Explore Nature, Engage, Soul Search, Make Some Noise, Localize, Build & Move, Keep in Time and Hack. The assignments can be carried out in various contexts, from primary schools to higher education, from home to online. They are intended to spark the imagination of both teachers and students, contributing to new, topical educational and artistic practices. The book is complemented by a theoretical framework and interviews with experts in contemporary arts and education.

On design’s complicity in systems of oppression: critique and exit strategies from the author of The Politics of Design Our current economic system could not exist without the number systems, coins, banknotes, documents, advertisements, interfaces, typefaces and information graphics that graphic designers have helped to create. Even speculative design and social design play their part in fueling the economic system. Capitalism has brought tremendous wealth, but it has not done so evenly. Extreme income inequality and environmental destruction is the price future generations have to pay for unbridled economic growth. The question is whether ethical graphic design is even possible under such conditions. CAPS LOCK uses clear language and visual examples to show how graphic design and capitalism are inextricably linked. By sharing examples of radical design practices that challenge the supremacy of the market, it hopes to inspire a different kind of graphic design. Ruben Pater (born 1977) was trained as a graphic designer and works in journalism, activism, education and graphic design under the name Untold Stories. His work has received several international prizes and he has participated in many exhibitions worldwide. His first book, The Politics of Design (2016), has been an inspirational sourcebook for design students, artists and visual communicators in many different places and contexts; Eye on Design wrote: "It’s the kind of literature that should be handed out to all students on their first days at art school, along with all the Albers, Berger, Benjamin and Sontag that form the backbone of the design curriculum?an up-to-date assessment of the landscape through which all modern visual practitioners must navigate."

Twelve lessons in fungal activism, Indigenous knowledge and collaboration for artists, gardeners, educators and anyone intrigued by the fascinating life and inspiring metaphors of the mycelium and the mushroom. The enormous popular interest in the world of fungi and the mycelium testifies to its tremendous resonance as a metaphor for new ways of thinking, new systems and behaviors. Taking its inspiration from this world, Let's Become Fungal! looks at a range of Indigenous practices from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia that are rooted in multispecies collaboration, symbiosis, alliances, non-monetary resource exchange, decentralization, bottom-up methods and mutual dependency--all suggestive of the behavior of the mycelium. Each of the book's 12 chapters offers teachings on collaboration, decoloniality, nonlinearity, toxicity, mobilization, biomimicry, death and being nonbinary, while also examining the world of fungi. Let's Become Fungal! shows how fungi can inspire artists, collectives, organizations, educators, policymakers, designers, scientists, anthropologists, curators, urbanists, activists, gardeners, community leaders, farmers and others to become more fungal in their ways of working and being. Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez (born 1984) works as a curator and researcher on art and ecology, and is based in Mexico City. She has founded and directed many international initiatives at the intersection of art and ecology, including the Green Art Lab Alliance (Asia, Latin America and Europe) and the Nature Research Department, the Van Eyck Food Lab, and the Future Materials Bank at the Jan van Eyck Academie (NL).

How social cooperation within communities can better the impact of functional, sustainable design The scarcity of resources, climate change and the digitalization of everyday life are fuelling the economy of swapping, sharing and lending: all of which are in some way linked to a culture of commoning. In this context, commons can be understood as community-based processes that use, collectively manage and organize generally accessible resources, either goods or knowledge. Commons in Design explores the meaning and impact of commons?especially knowledge-based peer commons?and acts of commoning in design. It discusses networked, participatory and open procedures based on the commons and commoning, testing models that negotiate the use of commons within design processes. In doing so, it critically engages with questions regarding designers’ positionings, everyday practices, self-understandings, ways of working and approaches to education. Contributors include: Rachel Armstrong, Max Stearns, Nathalie Attallah, Yuhe Ge, Juan Gomez, Luis Guerra, Katherin Gutiérrez Herrera, Cyrus Khalatbari, Rilla Khaled, Cindy Kohtala, Torange Khonsari, Álvaro Mercado Jara, Nan O’Sullivan, Victoria Paeva, Sharon Prendeville, Zoe Romano, Gregoire Rousseau, Daniela Salgado Cofré, Elpitha Tsoutsounakis, Eva Verhoeven, Jennifer Whitty.