Civic Objects and the Work of the Imagination

This talk by Kieran Long is part of the Design Interrupted talk series organized by the Department of Design.

In this talk, Kieran Long will look back over 25 years of experience in writing and curating to show how design exhibitions and events can go far beyond celebrating the work of designers to engage citizens’ imagination. In turn, he will show how this approach opens up the vocabulary of what design is and the objects it incorporates.

About the talk:

The imagination is not just the preserve of professional creatives – it is employed by everyone. Meanwhile, design curating has the power to form new narratives and interpretations around pressing contemporary issues and open new discussions about civic life through objects. In this talk, Kieran Long will look back over 25 years of experience in writing and curating to show how design exhibitions and events can go far beyond celebrating the work of designers to engage citizens’ imagination. In turn, he will show how this approach opens up the vocabulary of what design is and the objects it incorporates.

About the speaker:

Kieran Long is Director of Amos Rex in Helsinki since February 2024, having previously led ArkDes, the national museum of architecture and design in Stockholm, Sweden. Long has been a writer, teacher and curator of architecture and design for more than 25 years. His career began as a journalist, writing for newspapers and magazines, and working as editor in chief of the Architects’ Journal and the Architectural Review. He was the host of television programmes for the BBC on architectural history and the architecture critic for the Evening Standard.

In 2011–12, Long worked with David Chipperfield and led his curatorial team for the Venice Biennale of architecture. After the biennale, he joined the Victoria & Albert Museum as Keeper of Design, Architecture and Digital. Long has taught architecture at London Metropolitan University, Kingston University, and EPFL Lausanne, and design at the Royal College of Art.

Host:

Guy Julier is the author of Economies of Design (2017) and The Culture of Design (3rd Revised Edition 2014). A writer, academic and practitioner, he has over 30 years professional experience observing and researching global changes in design, economics and society. He is credited with having established Design Culture as a field of study and research.

About the talk series:

www.aalto.fi/en/design-interrupted

Today, the study and practice of design are in great flux. We are amidst the biggest socio-economic transformation since the 1750s, experiencing the fifth Industrial Revolution. There is a growing pressure to transition economies driven by extractive, wasteful and polluting logics towards systems designed to fit the planetary limits. Such transformation requires the design of new types of products and services, as well as new systems and approaches to large-scale changes.

At the same time, design as a practice area is also changing. It is shifting away from a more rigidly defined practice of professionally trained designers creating graphics, objects and spaces towards a practice that is loosely defined, fuzzy and seemingly omnipresent. Many have been calling for democratizing design and recognizing the efforts of non-professional designers. Design thinking, methods and practices have entered many contexts, including governance, jurisprudence, sciences and activism. The design community has been grappling with the ever-expanding definitions of what design is and who a designer is.

This talk series invites design professionals, students, academics and anyone interested in these challenges to a series of conversations. Each event features a scene-setting lecture by a leading practitioner and thinker followed by open discussion. Three themes give focus to the series: digital, societal and material transformations. What is design’s role in these transformations? How do we generate new know-how to support the needed transitions, and what examples already exist that we can learn from? What stands in the way of progress towards equitable, diverse, and sustainable lives, and what is the role of design in removing such blockages? What are design and designers in this new context?

Department of Design at Aalto University invites you to join our conversations to explore what design is, can and should be in the 21st Century.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

V001 - Jenny ja Antti Wihurin Rahasto, Ekonominaukio 1, Espoo, Finland