what design can do

What Design Can Do (WDCD) aims to promote the power of design as a catalyst of change and renewal, and to address the societal questions of our time. The highlight of its activities consists of a yearly conference with international speakers and a varied activity programme. Over the years, WDCD has brought together significant and progressive designers from all over the world to Amsterdam, to fuel the debate on future design. Being a collaborative partner of What Design Can Do, The Stedelijk Museum wants to mark and celebrate WDCD’s 5th anniversary by organising a Public Program on the 21st of May and an exhibition dedicated to the (past and present) conference’s participators and the organisation’s body of thought.

exhibition What Design Can Do

The exhibition What Design Can Do will also open on the 21st of May, on ground floor of the museum of the Stedelijk Museum. This exhibition is dedicated to WDCD’s background story and to a selection of designers who participated in this year’s conference or in previous editions.

New York based design and architecture studio Dror will demonstrate how their 2006 invention, a construction element called QuaDror, can function in many different ways. The QuaDror was initially designed as an aesthetic object, but proved to be so strong and versatile it could be used to create walls, (temporary) dwellings or even furniture.

The Brazilian Campana Brothers, product and interior designers, will show several of their pieces which unite the seemingly paradoxical aspects of traditional handicraft and modern technology. The brothers have a preference for everyday, cheap materials and are inspired by their Brazilian heritage and home city, Sao Paolo.

Dutch journalist and illustrator Rogier Klomp presents his project Big Data (2013), on which he collaborated with filmmaker Shuchen Tan. The documentary was broadcast on Dutch television by VPRO, and showed how new ways to research digital resources and to visualise research results could lead to a revolutionary and exciting form of journalism.

British designer and researcher Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg will present her project Designing for the Sixth Extinction(2013). Ginsberg investigates the potential impact of synthetic biology on biodiversity and the conservation of nature. It seems like a new, sixth wave of extinction will soon hit the world’s nature and its inhabitants, and Ginsberg wants to show what ‘wild nature’ designed by synthetic biologists could possibly look like in the near future.

Finally, British duo Bompas & Parr will be featured with their Kepler’s Platonic Planetary Bar installation.

What design can do: Taste It! - May 21

stedelijk|event, May 21 
What design can do: Taste It!
Language: English
Location: Under the canopy and in the Teijin auditorium
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