Multi Multi was a two-months online platform dedicated to questions on the role of design for sustainability and ecological problems. Climate change and environmental sustainability have become widely recognized as the most significant and pressing concerns of our time. Design as the shaping of society and nature can critically reflect and change the destructive status quo; at the same time, design perpetuates and reinforces environmental damage caused by its actions.
Emerging relationships with the natural and technical world call the binary understanding of human and non-human into question; knowledge inscribed in marginalized and unrecognized cultures and systems is incorporated in new design approaches, strategies, and concepts. Design strategies, such as posthuman design, Xeno-design, or holistic and systemic design approaches, arose that are aware of a world that combines different systems' (co)existence. These approaches try to overcome the focus on the human in design and are looking for a sensitive, empathic, and interconnected way of designing with respect to sustainability.
Multi Multi's goal was to provide an inside look and critical viewpoints on different ideas and approaches to these ambitions. In the framework of 12 online activities, such as lectures with discussions, reading groups, and workshops, invited experts from all around the Europe presented their projects, concepts, and ideas. Multi Multi was supported by Slovak Arts Council and Slovak Design Center.
Photos and materials by RIBL