Marjanne van Helvert - The Responsible Object

“Design is a terrain of possible dissent.”

We live in an economic system that revolves around producing and consuming products made of plastic and metal, synthetic textiles, electronics and other things that will not degrade in the foreseeable future.

What would future archeologists think of our time, if they were to dig in the places that used to house our civilization? They would discover countless dumpsites of things we threw away: plastic and metal objects, still smouldering heaps of discarded electronics, synthetic textiles, and other things that do not decompose within a foreseeable amount of time. They would find the leftovers of an age of rampant, imperishable objects. Today, in an economic system that revolves around producing and consuming these objects, we are starting to review their role in a series of challenges that lie ahead of us. In the design discipline, sustainability and social responsibility have become prolific epithets, generating new products, materials, and technologies, designed to change the course of our future. The intrinsic design ideologies are often not new, but form a fundamental part of design history, reappearing throughout the previous centuries. This book presents a history of socially committed design strategies within the western design tradition, from William Morris to Victor Papanek, and from VKhUTEMAS to FabLab.

Edited by Marjanne van Helvert, with contributions from Andrea Bandoni, Ece Canli, Alison J. Clarke, Éva Forgács, Marjanne van Helvert, Susan R. Henderson, Ed van Hinte, Elizabeth C. Miller, Luiza Prado de O. Martins, Pedro JS Vieira de Oliveira