As Future Observatory Curator at Future Observatory/the Design Museum I run the Design Researchers in Residence programme, supporting emerging design thinkers at the start of their careers to spend a year developing a new research project in response to a theme.
The first year of the programme culminated with a free display at the museum and an accompanying catalogue.
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Design Researchers in Residence: Restore brings together the work of the 2021/22 Design Researchers in Residence – four thinkers based at the Design Museum working on research projects in response to the climate crisis. The display shows some of their findings and proposals through objects, films, drawings and more.
What would it mean for designers to restore, rather than create?
As we confront the climate crisis, we cannot necessarily rely on a new invention to solve all of our problems. This year’s residency theme asks: rather than making something new, how can design respond to what’s already there?
Restoration often means the act of mending an object: a salvaged piece of furniture, a decaying image, a cracked screen or a rusty bicycle. Over the course of their residency, these design researchers have expanded the concept of ‘restorative’. Here is design that reclaims and reuses; reframes and renews; reconsiders and reimagines.
This year’s Design Researchers in Residence are Thomas Aquilina, Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, Samuel Iliffe and Sanne Visser. The projects take us to Kensington hairdressers and into the shadow of Grenfell Tower, through the UK’s polluted lakes and on to an imagined, less comfortable future. They show us the ecological value of seaweed, the adaptability of waste materials, the creative potential of recycled human hair and the importance of listening to the silences in our city. Their work traces design-led routes towards more restorative relationships: between places and communities, between ourselves and our planet.
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The Restore display ran at the Design Museum between June and September 2022.
Curator: George Kafka
Producer: Rebecca Gremmo
Assistant curator: Lila Boschet
Exhibition design: Rose Nordin with Sahra Hersi
George Kafka 