Designing Politics
Ideas from New York, London and Rio de Janeiro
May 8–June 9, 2017
Old Building (entrance via Houghton Street or Clare Market)
London WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom
What does it mean to design for free speech? Can architects create urban commons? Is respect something that can be built into the city?
Theatrum Mundi, in collaboration with LSE Arts, present Designing Politics. Learning from three ideas challenges in New York, London and Rio de Janeiro, this exhibition will continue a conversation about the relationship between design, performance, politics and the city.
The Designing Politics project was developed following a series of Theatrum Mundi workshops influenced by the Occupy Movement in 2012. For the past three years, Theatrum Mundi has asked a different question in a different city. In New York in 2014, we asked whether urban design interventions can stimulate the use of the First Amendment protecting free speech in public. In London in 2015, we called for the design of systems and situations through which new urban commons could be built. In Rio in 2016, we asked whether an aesthetics of respect can be designed, and what the implications are for the politics of the city. In each city, an open call invited interdisciplinary teams of people from across the performing and visual arts, and the built environment disciplines to send in propositional responses.
Rather than exhibit the winners of the ideas challenges, this exhibition draws ideas from across the three years to reflect upon the relationship between design, politics and the city.
Curated by Adam Kaasa and Elisabetta Pietrostefani at Theatrum Mundi.
Designed by Mike Lim, Roddy Bow and James Pockson.
Acknowledgements
Theatrum Mundi is a network of people from the performing and visual arts, the built environment disciplines, from across the academy and community and social collectives. It activates projects, meetings and research in cities internationally. In London, it is based at LSE Cities at the London School of Economics.
Theatrum Mundi would like to thank the organising committees and juries in New York, London, and Rio de Janeiro. In New York our partners included the American Institute of Architects. In London our partners included the London Festival of Architecture and MakeCity Festival Berlin. In Rio de Janeiro our partners included People’s Palace Projects, Spectaculu, Museu de Arte do Rio, and the Museu do Amanhã.
Designing Politics is made possible through core funding for Theatrum Mundi at the LSE by James Anderson.
