Mexico Design City (Future)

To think about the future of design from a dynamic and divided megacity like Mexico City seems like an explosive exercise. The third and final installment of Mexico Design City (Future) offers a speculative diagnosis of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for design in its relationship to this particular city.

MXCD03 recovers the spirit of experimentation and cross-pollination of the legendary exhibition This is Tomorrow, organized by Theo Crosby at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 1956, by bringing together—in a radically different temporal and geographical register, but packed with strange resonances—14 designers and experimental creators working together in (disparate) pairs, imagining future scenarios for the city and seeking to answer the question: what will happen to design in Mexico City tomorrow?

MXCD03 blurs categorical divisions between design, art, urbanism, architecture, information, graphics, object, space, reality and fiction to advance new ideas about design and the city by way of speculative research and production.

The seven original projects presented in MXCD03 are based on different future scenarios—immediate, near or far—that point to unprecedented environmental and social challenges; propose new tools, working dynamics and creation strategies; or destabilize institutions and identities through alternative forms of organization and community.

MXCD03 <imagines / questions / proposes / composes / assembles / dismantles> Mexico City’s possible tomorrows by testing and pushing the limits of today.

MXCD03 includes original works by Alberto Odériz, Amor Muñoz, Andrés Souto, ASCO.MEDIA, Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, BÁSICA, Carla Valdivia, Edwina Portocarrero, Fabien Cappello, Guerxs, NAAFI, Oficina de Resiliencia Urbana, Pablo Somonte and Rozana Montiel.

MXCD03 is organized by Mario Ballesteros, director and curator at Archivo, with Alejandro Olávarri and Pedro Ceñal, assistant curators. Architecture of the exhibition by Escobedo Soliz with Eugenio Rebolleda.

About Mexico Design City
Three moments: three exhibitions
From October 2016 until October 2018, Mexico Design City presents three exhibitions and a publication that investigate the present, past and future of design in the Mexican capital; a reflection at different temporalities that presents design as a daily transformation force, a tool to solve problems and generate changes in the urban environment, at all scales. The Mexico Design City series covers design in the broadest sense of the word: objects and furniture, but also graphic design, architecture, and urban design and infrastructure. Launched in preparation for the designation of Mexico City as World Design Capital 2018, Mexico Design City wants to provoke new understandings of the power and responsibility of design, building a dialogue with actors and projects that are generating a more purposeful local design culture.

About Archivo 
Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura is a space dedicated to collecting, exhibiting and rethinking the design in all its diversity. Through its collection of more than 1500 objects open to the public, as well as a program of exhibitions and activities, Archivo has established itself as a pioneering space and a reference for the architectural and design community in Mexico.