Emotions are universal, with shared meanings that transcend borders. Thoughtful design and technology can create positive emotional experiences, enabling new social possibilities and meaningful connections between people.

Professor Andong LU, initiator of the unique Memory Project of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, will chair a panel of experts discussing key issues in designing for heritage conservation, tourism, place-making and the evolution of public space in China.   

Invited speakers include the initiator of the memory project, conservation engineer and interior designer for the renovation project, and a leading practitioner in place-making in China.

BIOGRAPHIES

Qing Chun, Associate Professor at Southeast University, director of conservation of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.

Xin Jin, Principal Architect of FANAF, interior designer for the renovation of the towers of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.

Hui Wang, Joint-founder of URBANUS, leading practice in place-making in China since 1999 and the practice that designed the China Pavilion at the 2016 London Design Biennale.

Andong Lu [China], Professor at Nanjing University, initiator of the Memory Project of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge and curator of the China pavilion.

Nassia Inglessis of Studio INI has created a spectacular installation that engages and disrupts viewers perceptions of space and structure. Mariam Majid has designed an installation celebrating the creative work of female artisans in Pakistan’s cotton textile industry. Nathalie Harb’s designs for urban environments, including The Silent Room, are intended to counter social segregation in cities like her native Beirut, and respond to growing levels of noise pollution. 

The panel, chaired by Charlotte Fiell, co-author of the book Women in Design, also considers the issue of diversity in the design sector worldwide.

BIOGRAPHIES

Charlotte Fiell and her husband Peter are leading authorities on the history, theory and criticism of design and have written over fifty books on the subject, including “Women in Design” to be published by Laurence King in 2019. Charlotte studied at the British Institute in Florence, and at Camberwell College of Arts (UAL) and Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. In the late 1980s the Fiells opened a design gallery in London’s King’s Road, before becoming freelance authors, editors, and publishing consultants in 2013. 

Nathalie Harb [Lebanon] is a multi-disciplinary scenographer. Her work explores the history of public and private spaces, with a focus on themes of home, shelter and exile. Her projects have been presented in cities across the Middle East, Asia and Europe, and have spanned urban interventions, film, theatre, interiors and events. She lives and works between London and Beirut.

Nassia Inglessis [Greece] is an Artist and Design Engineer based in London and Athens. She founded Studio INI as an experimental design studio with a human centric approach to explore matter in the context of cognition. With a technical foundation in Engineering science (Oxford Uni­versity & Imperial College London) and training in art & design (The Royal College of Art & MIT Media Lab) Nassia and her team are naturally driven to address technology in its etymological aspect of τέχνη (art /skill) and λογία _(reason/science).

Marjam Majid [Pakistan] is Writer and Director at Wagging Tongues Productions. She has a degree in Sculpture from the National College of Arts Pakistan and over twenty years of experience in the field of arts and drama. The writer and director of the Jungly Jadoogar series, she is also currently pursuing a post-graduate degree in Filmmaking from Kingston University. As a mother of three, she felt it was her duty to help strengthen the British Asian identity of her community, harnessed to its roots yet branching out into the global culture of the world.

Nations and cities are increasingly recognising the power of design in public policy and international relations.  Designers are called upon to advise governments on nation brands and reputations, while architects are involved in placemaking and the forging of new urban identities.

BIOGRAPHIES

Adrian Jankowiack [Refugees’ Pavilion] is the founder of Nairobi Design Week, the annual festival that promotes the Kenyan design community, in collaboration with local and international partners. Through this initiative, Adrian gives citizens a chance to explore the scene and participate in projects and conversations concerning their city, with the aim to keep an open dialogue and create tangible outcomes.

Natalie Kane [United Kingdom], is Curator of Digital Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and co-curator of Haunted Machines, a long-term curatorial and research project on the narratives of magic and hauntings pervading our relationship with technology.

Natalie has guest lectured at London College of Communications and Design Academy Eindhoven, is a Visiting Tutor at the Instituto de Europea Design (Barcelona) and previously taught at Royal Institute of Theatre, Cinema and Sound (Brussels).

Forensic Architecture [United Kingdom], is a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London. The team, directed by architect and Goldsmiths professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures, Eyal Weizman, undertakes advanced architectural and media research on behalf of international prosecutors, human rights organisations and political and environmental justice groups.

Matthew Anderson is the European Culture Editor of The New York Times. He oversees cultural coverage for the continent from The Times's bureau in London. Mr. Anderson joined The New York Times in 2017 from the BBC, where he worked for 10 years as a reporter, producer and editor for TV, radio and online content. He edited the BBC.com homepage from 2010 to 2013, then became the inaugural editor of BBC Culture, an arts and entertainment site aimed at digital users outside the U.K. Since joining The Times, Mr. Anderson has expanded the paper's coverage of theatre, the visual arts and popular culture in Europe, and reported form London, Berlin and the Cannes Film Festival.

From Colombia and Puerto Rico to Australia, a panel of designers from various continents discuss how designers contribute to developments and evolution in their home countries. They consider how emotions of love and pride in design can inspire unity and encourage diversity.

BIOGRAPHIES

Flynn Talbot [Australia], is an Australian lighting artist and designer based in London. Talbot creates lighting installations and commissioned pieces for galleries, lighting festivals and unique buildings along with innovative lighting products for serial production.

Talbot’s starting point is always the same for each project. He begins with the consideration of the “light effect” and constructs each project around it. Every decision and detail is made with the quality of light and user connection in mind.

David del Valle [Colombia], is co-founder of Tu Taller Design and Director of the annual international event Medellín Design Week. As an industrial designer, he is part of the international collective uAbureau, and a researcher in the fields of digital production, Open Source and new technologies applied to design.

Celina Noguera [Puerto Rico], is the founder and creative strategist of MUUUAA. She has created events of great cultural impact for Puerto Rico, including the International Contemporary Art Fair 'Circa' and the urban art festival 'Graphopoli' for the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. She recently created ‘BOOM: Design, creativity and innovation fair’ with Miguel Miranda and is the editor of the architecture magazine ‘Entorno’.

Through the stories of Guatemalan and Argentinian designers, Loiseau will examine the experiences of rural villagers and remote tribes from the impenetrable jungle, exploring the duality between the urban and wild environment, ancestral traditions and modernity, violence and hope.

BIOGRAPHIES:

Cecilia Santamarina de Orive [Guatemala], Creative Producer and Ad Honorem Cultural Attaché at the Guatemalan Embassy in UK, has curated a successful variety of projects ranging from art and design to music and live performance, including the Guatemala: Rebooting Dreams at Somerset House International Fashion Showcase in 2016.

Sylvia Denburg [Guatemala], is a textile artist based in Guatemala City. She created her fist business ZYLE while living in NYC, specializing in men’s caps and woven accessories, before moving back to Guatemala, where she re-established her connection with the Guatemalan woven art. Her art relates how weaving is akin to women, and through their art/craft an ancestral history is related.

Diego Olivero [Guatemala], is co-founder of Olivero Bland Studio. Through his practice, he aims to connect people with spaces, products and ideas where they work, relax, live and learn through design; enhancing their living experience. The studio has worked and collaborated in different projects in Guatemala, United States, Brazil, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, and is always looking to generate a positive impact in the communities where the projects are located.

Sebastian Valdivia and Sol Marinucci [Argentina] are curators, designers and TRImarchi’s Co-founder and Director of International Relations, respectively.  Together they work with native communities all around Latin America with the aim to preserve their cultural heritage, crafts and pre-Columbian visual legacy and traditions. Their main activities include the playful textile anthropologic experience “Hombre Lobo”, the Drawing Safaris, and their epic Latin American design meeting “TRImarchi”, which every year gathers thousands of designers in Mar del Plata.

Benoît Loiseau is an art and design writer, sometimes curator, based in Mexico City. He is a regular contributor to Wallpaper*, and his work has also appeared in The Guardian, Frieze and The New York Times T Magazine, amongst others.

Responding to the Biennale installations three drawing sessions introduce a range of drawing techniques for visualising and communicating visitors’ ideas.

The three drawing sessions designed by Trevor Flynn and Peter Ayres explore process led drawing methods as a way of communicating images we form in our mind’s eye. Transformational techniques they use include juxtaposition of scales, drawing from the inside – out and layering.

Session 1 will introduce compelling techniques for thinking up and illustrating ideas that relate a theme to a specific site using 2D and 3D diagrams. 

BOOK SESSION 1

Session 2 will focus on the language of form: crafting, estimating and using tracing paper over isometric grids to make 3D images at different scales in response to a selection of installations distributed throughout Somerset House.

BOOK SESSION 2

Session 3 will generate ideas and forms to capture changing emotional states in relation to a selection of locations within Somerset House, and will provide tips on storyboarding and mapping.

Trevor Flynn is Director of Drawing At Work and founder of The Drawing Gym. He is a drawing instructor at the Design Museum, The Architectural Association, Bath University and the Institution of Structural Engineers. Formerly an illustrator, his work includes a best-selling cookbook and a book by Richard Curtis about the film Notting Hill 

Peter Ayres’ work in education includes creativity sessions for young people, educators and professional designers. His workshops unlock participants' drawing skills and help them reveal deep insights. His skills for ideation, development, and delivery of special projects at all scales are visible in his work as co-director of London Based designers and architects Beep Studio.

Level: Suitable for all levels from beginner to advanced.

Book three workshops together and receive a complimentary ticket to the Biennale.

BIOGRAPHIES

The work of Arthur Analts [Latvia] takes a critical view of political, cultural and environmental issues. His focus is on contemporary art with strong research and high-added emotional value to each project. Innovative experimentation across materials, technology, production and scale are key drivers. While working in various media, Arthur’s methodology is consistent - the subject matter of each body of work determines the material and the form of the work.

Waldick Jatoba [Brazil] is a Brazilian economist, design collector and curator. Moved by this passion, in 2013 he co-founded the first design salon, Design São Paulo, called M.A.DE, and has contributed to several exhibitions such as Campana Brothers (2010) and Tables (2011) at Baro Gallery and Claudia Moreila. Waldick sits on the board of various cultural institutions, including the Campana Institute, AAMAC - Associação dos Amigos do Museu de Arte Contemporânea, ARTESOL – Artesanato Solidario, Casa Cor São Paulo and the Crowdfunding Startando.

Oyuna Tserendorj [Mongolia] is the founder of the eponymous lifestyle label Oyuna, which she founded with partner David Bernasconi in 2002. Oyuna creates home, accessories and womenswear based on a design-led approach and a deep connection to the cashmere of Mongolia, where it defends its inhabitants against harsh climates. Oyuna left her native Mongolia to study in Hungary before settling in London.

ICON Magazine editor Priya Khanchandani, Polish curator Malgorzata Wesolowska and Israeli designer Nelly Agassi explore the emotional value of everyday objects and how they can help bring the untold stories of past generations to the surface.

BIOGRAPHIES

Priya Khanchandani [India], is writer, curator and Editor of ICON Magazine. She specialises in contemporary design and Indian culture through writing, curating and arts management. Priya has previously worked for cultural institutions such as the V&A and the British Council India, where she curated the Reimagine arts programme and formed part of a core team behind the UK-India Year of Culture. She also contributed to art and design magazines such as Frieze Magazine and Disegno. She is a Trustee of Engage and co-runs Museums Detox, a collective of museum professionals campaigning for greater diversity in the arts.

Nelly Agassi [Israel] engages in her work both the personal and emotional while looking at universal concepts and issues. Her artwork addresses the idea of the body and notion of intimacy within public space in relation to architecture, objects, culture and design. Agassi's work is varied and include performance, installations, video, textile and paper.

Małgorzata Wesołowska [Poland], is a curator and researcher. While pursuing her doctorate at the Gdansk Academy of Fine Arts, she collaborates with the Polish Institute in Berlin to promote Polish culture abroad. She was a member of the project team responsible for the Polish pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010, and in 2015 she took part in the Gdansk Festival - ‘Narracje’. As part of the Festival, together with the graphic artist G. Warzycka, she illegally sold architecturally conserved parts of the New Port area from the office of a fictional estate agent.

More than 30 years later, working with fine materials like glass, gold and velvet, Irma’s designs reflect her visual and emotional memories from her early childhood.

In her talk, Irma will take the audience on a journey from the landscapes of the former USSR-Georgia, through the process of concept and idea development, through to material research and the final designs.

Designers and architects are increasingly extending their practice beyond the physical concerns of buildings and spaces to planning for the emotional needs of individuals and communities in urban environments. 

BIOGRAPHIES:

Jeremy Myerson is the Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design, The Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art where his research interests focus on the role of design in social, demographic and technological change. 

Siôn Parkinson is the producer of Dundee Design Festival and Tilde Arts curator of Dundee’s installation at LDB 2018 that uses video gaming environments to enable young people to tackle anxiety and depression.

Sumantro Ghose is the Managing Director of London Design Biennale. Prior to his appointment in December 2017, he was Exhibitions and Programmes Director at Etihad Museum, Dubai, and Director of International Programmes at Qatar Museums Authority. In the UK, he has worked and consulted for museums and institutions including Asia House, Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.

As design practice evolves from the more traditional concerns of aesthetics and problem-solving, this panel considers how designers can respond to global issues and international crises.

BIOGRAPHIES:

Anab Jain [Austria], is a designer, futurist, filmmaker and educator. She is co-founder and Director of Superflux, a design studio regarded as the spearhead of critical and investigative approach to contemporary design. She is also a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna in 2016, where she leads the Design Investigations (ID2) Program. She has previously collaborated with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the British Government Office and the 2017 Vienna Biennale, and her works are represented in leading collections.

Maximilian Scheidl [Austria] started to study Industrial Design under Fiona Raby at the University of applied arts Vienna, finishing his pre-diploma in 2017 under Anab Jain and continues to study towards his diploma. His work was exhibited at the Vienna Design Biennial 2015 and 2017 and the Maker Fair Vienna 2018. He has done freelance work for the event agency Consequences and is currently working for Superflux.

Natalie Kane [United Kingdom], is Curator of Digital Design at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and co-curator of Haunted Machines, a long-term curatorial and research project on the narratives of magic and hauntings pervading our relationship with technology. Natalie has guest lectured at London College of Communications and Design Academy Eindhoven, is a Visiting Tutor at the Instituto de Europea Design (Barcelona) and previously taught at Royal Institute of Theatre, Cinema and Sound (Brussels).

Rami Tareef [Israel] is a product designer and design lecturer. His works are researching and challenging the borders between new and old, tradition and technology, through varied design tools and conceptual paradigms. His creation process articulating the interdependence of cultural and social values of east and west as to many other aspects of our material and non-material culture. This duologue uttered in designing everyday products that represent the hybrid identity of our multicultural contemporary life.

Sumantro Ghose is the Managing Director of the London Design Biennale. Prior to his appointment in December 2017, he was Exhibitions and Programmes Director at Etihad Museum, Dubai, and Director of International Programmes at Qatar Museums Authority. In the UK, he has worked and consulted for museums and institutions including Asia House, Tate and the National Portrait Gallery.

"Gaming Disorder" has now been identified as a new mental health condition by the World Health Organisation (WHO), but digital designers see this classification as oversimplified, marking a tendency to blame computer games for society’s problems.

Are there in fact psychological and social benefits of playing games? Could gaming techniques be used to tackle major social challenges, such as rising mental illness and access to education? And how can computer games be used to question or provoke our political institutions, to challenge the norms and expectations of the digital present?

The event is hosted by Abertay University, Dundee. Abertay introduced the first degree in computer game design in the UK. Dundee is home to one-third of the country’s gaming companies.

BIOGRAPHIES

Malath Abbas is a game designer and founder of Biome Collective, Scotland’s first video game collective. Created in collaboration with mental health practitioners in Dundee, Biome Collective’s interactive installation for London Design Biennale 2018, Shpeel, encourages visitors to start a conversation about their emotional state without having to use words.

Joseph De Lappe is an artist and activist best known for his interventions exploring contemporary issues in politics. Together with Biome Collective, Joseph recently created Killbox, an interactive computer game about drone warfare. The game was nominated for a BAFTA Scotland award and has been shown at games festivals around the world. He is Professor of Games Research at Abertay University.

Dr. Kate Smith is a therapeutic practitioner and educator based in Dundee where she is involved in large-scale projects examining the role of counselling for people with long term health conditions.

Lynn Love (chair) is an artist whose work explores how games, events, and objects that utilise play can transform communities.

What role does it play in maintaining the empathy and warmth of real life moments with friends and loved ones?

Norwegian curator Onny Eikhaug and Founder of No Isolation Karen Dolva will discuss this topic with Kahoot! founder Jamie Brooker and they will introduce AV1, the little telepresence robot that helps ill children overcome social isolation.

BIOGRAPHIES:

Onny Eikhaug [Norway] is Programme Leader at DOGA, responsible for pioneering and developing activities in the field of people-centric inclusive design. She also spearheads the centre's government-funded Innovation for All programme, promoting inclusive design as an effective strategy for innovation to businesses and the public sector. She holds an MBA from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. Onny was honoured with the Inclusive Design Champion Award at the Include conference 2015 at the Royal College of Art in London and is also the President of EIDD Design for All Europe.

Jamie Brooker [Norway], is Co-Founder of Kahoot!, one of the world’s fastest growing learning brands with over 70 million unique monthly active users in 200+ countries. Under Jamie's creative and product leadership Kahoot! grew from a research project to a company that captured over half of US K-12 classrooms, as well as millions of business and social users. He left day-to-day operations in the spring 2017 to focus on building new purpose-driven ventures with We Are Human, whom he is a Founding Partner.

Karen Dolva [Norway], co-founder and CEO of No Isolation, was first inspired when she met Anne Fi Troye, a mother who had lost her teenage daughter to cancer in 2005. Along with co-founders Marius Aabel and Matias Doyle, she began to research how technology could be used to support children with debilitating illnesses. No Isolation was then founded in October 2015, and the first prototype for AV1 was made available in January 2016. Karen studied Computer Science and Interaction Design at the University of Oslo, and began her career at StartupLab Oslo, before co-founding UX Lab, a user interaction consultancy. Karen was a finalist of the Innovation Norway Female Entrepreneur Award 2016.

The talk will explore the creative process behind the Leeds Pavilion, inspired by religious symbolism in reference to Elizabethan interior design, and the relationship between fashion and performance art emerging from this creative partnership between Bovan, Mullen and Leach.

BIOGRAPHIES

Matty Bovan graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2015 with an MA specialising in Fashion Knitwear.  His 12-look graduate collection opened the final show and earned him the L’Oréal Professionel Creative Award and the LVMH Graduate Prize 2015, while earlier this year he held his first solo show ‘Vigilamus’ at London Fashion Week for Autumn/Winter 2018. Nominated for British Emerging Womenswear Talent at the Fashion Awards 2017, his work is often seen worn by the likes of of Adwoa Aboah, Georgia May Jagger, Hailey Baldwin, Harriet Verney, Noomi Rapace, Rita Ora, and Winnie Harlow.

Adam Leach is an artist from Yorkshire, living and working in London. While his work is inspired by his interest in painting, Adam’s activity reveals a fascination with pictures, and particularly with the way they circulate in culture and function parallel to our lives.

Rory Mullen is an Irish artist specialised in sculpture and performance. His work combines art and traditional theatre, and uses what materials comes to hand, including cardboard, clay, detritus, gaffa tape. As a result, his creations are often funny and absurd, and have a roughly constructed handmade aesthetic pulled through with a wilful childish energy.

Zara Worth is an artist, writer and doctoral researcher based between Gateshead, Leeds and London. A Doctoral Candidate in Fine Art (Practice-led) at Leeds Beckett University, she received a BA in Fine Art from Northumbria University and an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, London. Recent exhibitions include her solo show ‘FEED’ at Vane, Newcastle upon Tyne, and group shows including ‘AVBody, Judaica Project‘ at the University of Huddersfield and ‘Gallery Tally’ in ‘Starless Midnight’, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.

Alison Maloney is Curator of the International Exhibitions Programme at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, whose aim is to present fashion and dress through a cross-disciplinary series of exhibitions, events and conferences in the UK and globally. She has previously worked as Fashion and Textiles Advisor for the Architecture, Design, Fashion department of the British Council.