Review: London Design Biennale 2021
I really enjoyed the celebration of varied, creative responses to the globe’s biggest problems on show at the London Design Biennale. However I did come away wondering if an overwhelming focus on ideas, to the exclusion of the messier question of how we might actually implement them, does design and designers (and not to mention the complexity of the challenge climate and social issues represent) a bit of a disservice.
The eye-catching centrepiece of the Biennale is no doubt the ‘Forest of Change’, a grove of 400 young trees filling the main courtyard at Somerset House. A path through the foliage leads the visitor, accompanied by the gentle sounds of (pre-recorded) birdsong, to a clearing which contains a circle of 17 brightly coloured pillars. Each of these represents one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and as well as featuring quotes and statistics to remind us of their urgency, their mirrored flanks inevitably prompt us to question our own role and responsibilities. The 17th and final pillar (that for ‘Partnerships for the Global Goals’) invites visitors to record a short message to describe the change they’d like to see, which will then be integrated into a generative music installation surrounding this glade.
But while this mini-forest is engaging and thought-provoking (and not to mention Instagramable!), the full significance of the gesture it represents is not made obvious: text on one infoboard however relates that in line with Enlightenment ideals, the builders of Somerset House forbade the planting of trees in the courtyard so as to ensure views of its facades were not obscured. So it’s fittingly symbolic that an installation calling for humanity to live in balance with the planet usurps (however quietly) the rules inspired by a movement that did more than any other to place ideas of mankind’s dominion over the natural world at the fore of western cultures. It’s also in the spirit of things that after the exhibition these trees will become a ‘living’, and greening, legacy for London, being re-planted all around the city.
The real meat of the exhibition comes in the national pavilions and other installations dotted through the wings of the buildings themselves. These range from those that could be described as ‘artistic’ responses, challenging us to engage with and reflect on particular issues, to those more focused on potential practical solutions. The Guatemalan pavilion for example, entitled ‘Nostalgia’, asks us to contemplate what it means for a landscape to lose its water, by inviting interaction with a sound sculpture made up of ‘rainsticks’. The Venezuelan exhibit, on the other hand, whilst also reflecting a sense of loss, this time at mass emigration brought about by economic woes, imagines a more circular future: it wonders if avocado seeds, ‘free and readily available’ in the country, might be combined with other ‘unutilized’ materials such as seaweed and starches to produce new kinds of substitute materials and so empower a post-petroleum era. A range of these materials are on display here, including ersatz ‘adobe’ style building blocks and substitute glass and plastic.
The other major section is the ‘Design in an Age of Crisis’ gallery, which features submissions for an open call for potential solutions to the world’s biggest challenges — so labelled ‘radical design thinking’. There were 500 entries under the headings of Work, Society, Health and Environment, all of which are browsable on the Biennale website, while one crowded hallway showcases 12 different ideas in the flesh. These range from new and stylish building materials created by recycling ceramic industry waste through to a proposal for an orchestra that plays instruments entirely fashioned from discarded items that have been thrown away: the entrants suggest that performances and workshops with these instruments might help us all reevaluate our relationship with material objects and what we consider ‘trash’. The gallery culminates by inviting visitors to join in this celebration of ideation, by noting their own suggestions on paper tags and then hanging these from the branches of an ‘ideas tree’.
The message this exhibit imparts seems a pretty clear one — as a quote from Linus Pauling writ-large on the wall was no doubt chosen to convey: ‘The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas’. But while some of those on show here might well be ‘good’, we might justifiably wonder what comes next. Having had a load of ideas, can we assume it’s job done, that we will see the change we need and the ‘better world’ the exhibit calls for realised? Well no, unfortunately not. Because while ideation is a crucial part of design processes, it is only one part, even on the simplest projects. And furthermore, as Steve Jobs once had it, ‘ideas are worth nothing unless executed’. It’s the far less glamorous processes of research into the problem space, securing stakeholder buy-in, and then testing and implementing solutions that lead to successful execution.
While I appreciate these topics might not so easily be fashioned into material for a crowd-pleasing exhibition, given both the complexity and urgency of the climate crisis, it seems a bit of omission to not address the question of how we can take ideas through to implementation. How we can get our ideas to be adopted, and cultures and systems actually be adapted and changed. As a working service designer who still frequently encounters the misconception that design is only about generating (often impractical) ideas and making things look pretty, I feel that what almost amounts to a ‘fetishisation’ of ideas to the exclusion of all else is a bit unhelpful at this stage in proceedings. This would be my only criticism of what is overall an exciting celebration of creative thinking in service of a sustainable planetary future.
