No.5 Sub-Theme Exhibition：WHAT IF

Exhibition Space:

about 900 square meters

Curatorial team:

Fiona Raby

Partner of Dunne & Raby, Reader in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art, London
Professor of Industrial Design at the University of Applied Arts,Vienna

Anthony Dunne

Partner of Dunne & Raby, Professor and Head of the Design Interactions Department at the Royal College of Art in London

Jin Jiangbo

Chinese New Media Artist, Director of the Shanghai Creative Designers Association, Visiting scholar of the University of Auckland, New Zealand

Interpretation of the Theme

Do we design for how the world is now? ...or for how the world could be?

The projects in this exhibition ask ‘what if…?’ Their purpose is not to offer predictions but to inspire debate about the human consequences of different technological futures — both positive and negative.

For a while now, we’ve been very interested in the space between reality and the impossible, a space of dreams, hopes, and fears. Usually this space is occupied by future forecasts (commercial world), design scenarios (corporate world) and utopias and dystopias (literary and cinematic worlds).—It’s an important space, a place where the future can be debated and discussed before it happens, so that, at least in theory, the most desirable futures can be aimed for and the least desirable avoided .

There are no solutions here, or even answers, just lots of questions, thoughts, ideas and possibilities, all expressed through the language of design. They probe our beliefs and values, challenge our assumptions and encourage us to imagine how what we call ‘reality’ could be different. They help us see that the way things are now is just one possibility, and not necessarily the best one.— As the dreams that fed the 20th century imagination begin to fade, we need to learn how to dream new dreams.