FUTURESS
FUTURESS, where feminism, design and politics meet
Winner
FUTURESS, where feminism, design and politics meet
2020–ongoing
Basel
FUTURESS was originally imagined in 2019, as a library for design books that were “yet to be written.” Anyone was able to upload ideas for “missing” design stories onto our website, which would materialize as floating books on the screen. Soon the question arose: instead of remaining speculative, how could FUTURESS elevate the voices that are most missing in design? In times of crisis for digital publishing, this led us into a deep dive into the histories of feminist publishing, but there seemed to be no sustainable model in sight.
In 2021, FUTURESS and depatriachise design sister platforms joined forces, rallying against the seemingly apolitical, but profoundly problematic design discipline. Since then, we have grown into a lively platform with over 500 members spread across the five continents. We have welcomed over 190 workshop participants, organized more than 25 public events, and published over 100 texts.
Directors: Maya Ober, Nina Paim; managing editor: Mio Kojima; associate editor: Franca Lopéz Barbera; copyeditor: Sacha Fortuné; graphic and web design: Studio Tereza Bettinardi (Tereza Bettinardi and Lucas D’Ascenção); website development: Morgan Brown
One video, roughly 6 minutes, presented on a standing TV over a site-specific carpet
Our installation will occupy a space of 3.5 × 3.5 m
mp4, roughly 6 minutes
Carpet + TV on stand
–
FUTURESS: where feminism, design and politics meet. We are a hybrid of a learning community and a publishing platform.
We harness the power of digital modes of communication to bring people together across geographies and scales. Operating through many channels, we make the voices of our community louder and stronger. In that sense, our mission is a double one: to radically democratise design education and to amplify marginalised voices.
We facilitate online workshops, lectures, panel discussions and other formats around urgent topics. Through these many offerings, we investigate the role of design and foster critical thinking. Then we support our community in crafting their own narratives. We are there from the seed of an idea until a finished text eventually blossoms on our website. One story can inspire, many stories can ignite a movement.
We view design as a social and political practice, one that profoundly shapes our everyday lived realities. Design is in the words we speak, the objects we use, the things we do, the systems around us – all of which, too often, are fundamentally flawed. Our world is unjust and unequal, and design is, of course, deeply complicit with it. Design is not neutral, it can either sustain or transform our ways of being. And we strongly believe that design cannot change anything before changing itself.
