Current Reading: Design Act - Socially and Politically Engaged Design Today. Critical Roles and Emerging Tactics

The intermeshing perspective of these forward thinking experts renders this book a kind of reservoir of provocative ideas

Oh wow! A manifesto the way manifestos are supposed to look...grim and loaded with much gravtitas! How could you not love Magnus Ericson and Ramia Mazé's critical exploration of the socially engaged and activist implications of design.

This Design Act book proposes the questions :

-What is socially and politically engaged design today? What are its historical antecedents?
- Which form does it take"? Which strategies does it deploy?
- Where do you find socially engaged design? In which contexts?

It then proceeds to answer each topic with separate strategies involving interviews with Doina Petrescu, the co-founder of atelier d'architecture autogérée (aaa) (studio for self-managed architecture), Pelin Derviş, an architect, editor and curator who used to head the Garanti Gallery, Joseph Grima, editor in chief of Domus and former director of Storefront for Art and Architecture, Ou Ning, a Beijing-based curator, artist, documentary filmmaker, activist, designer, and director of the Shao Foundation;Yanki Lee, a young designer interested in methodology for participation and social innovation; designer, researcher and hacktivist Otto von Busch; architect and urbanist Mauricio Corbalan who co-founded m7red; and architect Tor Lindstrand, half of the International Festival of Economy.

The intermeshing perspective of these forward thinking experts renders this book a kind of reservoir of provocative ideas and strategies, proving that exactly when you assume creativity is bereft of political or social agenda, that is when it is most likely to carry an embedded cultural message. Which is always the danger ( as well as the seduction ) of a beautiful image.

The danger ( as well as the seduction ) of a beautiful image.