H+U+D Colloquium Tours “Designs for Different Futures” Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

On Friday, November 11, 2019, the H+U+D Colloquium visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art and toured their special exhibition, “Designs for Different Futures.” Curated by Kathryn Hiesinger and Michelle Millar Fisher at the Philadelphia Museum, the exhibition focuses on the role of designers in shaping the world of our future. Tasked with problem-solving across multiple disciplines, designers address the values, behavior, needs, and wants of society, not only with physical products, but by creating services, organizational systems, human interactions, speculative propositions, and even virtual experiences. About 80 future-focused projects are organized into subthemes, such as Bodies, Food, Generations, Data, Jobs, Materials, and Power. These projects range from Q, The Genderless Voice (2019), a non-binary blend of voices intended to frustrate gender assumptions, to Seated Design (2016) by Lucy Jones, an assemblage of clothing and accessories for wheelchair users. Other highlights include Orkan Telhan’s Ouroboros Steak (2019), a speculative project featuring meat produced from one’s own cells, and Another Generosity (2018), an inflatable pod that expands, contracts and changes color in response to its environment.

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