Design is nev­er innocent

“Design was and is the great seduc­er of a cap­i­tal­ism depen­dent on per­ma­nent growth. Many design­ers of today agree that since our prob­lems are results of design, the solu­tions to these prob­lems must also be results of design. Can design cre­ate a dif­fer­ent, indeed, a bet­ter world?” So says the announce­ment of the film “Design is nev­er inno­cent” by direc­tor Rein­hild Dettmer-Finke, which will soon be shown on ARTE. The film fea­tures design­ers* exper­i­ment­ing with 100 per­cent recy­clable mate­ri­als, research­ing ener­gy-sav­ing pro­duc­tion meth­ods in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary teams and self-found­ed lab­o­ra­to­ries, and ask­ing crit­i­cal ques­tions about design­ers’ respon­si­bil­i­ty for what and how they produce.

Even before the first broad­cast, a dig­i­tal ARTE film pre­miere with sub­se­quent dis­cus­sion will take place on Wednes­day, April 21, 2021. Direc­tor Rein­hild Dettmer-Finke, Mateo Kries (Direc­tor, Vit­ra Design Muse­um) and Julia Lohmann (Design­er and Pro­fes­sor of Design, Aal­to Uni­ver­si­ty Helsin­ki) will dis­cuss the film. It will be mod­er­at­ed by Romy Strassen­burg from the ARTE cul­tur­al mag­a­zine “Twist”.

Reg­is­tra­tion for the film pre­miere is pos­si­ble until April 20, 2021 by e‑mail at events [at] design-museum.de

The pub­lic broad­cast of the film is sched­uled for Wednes­day, April 28 at 9:40 p.m. on  ARTE (Ver­füg­bar 27.05.2021).

Image: Lisa White, cura­tor of the Design Bien­nale, Saint-Eti­enne 2019, Image rights: ZDF / © Ker­stin Pommerenke/Kobalt