{"id":944,"date":"2025-03-30T22:00:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T22:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/designdisaster.unibz.it\/2024\/?page_id=944"},"modified":"2025-05-09T15:02:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T15:02:03","slug":"ddcon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/designdisaster.unibz.it\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"By Design and by Disaster Conference 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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hope<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

RECLAIMING THE FUTURE<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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8-10 May 2025 Bolzano\/Bozen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

V\u00e1clav Havel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A different sort of conference<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since their start in 2013,  the annual By Design and by Disaster Conferences have been focussing on social-ecological transformations, and what design and art can contribute along with partners and allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conference series has co-developed with the Master in Eco-Social Design<\/a> at the Faculty of Design and Art of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. It offers a mix of inspiring presentations, hands-on workshops, academic tracks, performances, walks, talks and more in a convivial atmosphere with tasty food, music, dancing, sun, mountains, \u2026 The conference gathers transformation-engaged designers and artists, activists, critical scientists, courageous farmers, unconventional social workers and entrepreneurs, commoners and more\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Keynotes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We start with the track Connected Alternatives<\/em> on Thursday morning with Jesko Fezer<\/strong><\/a> (<\/strong>Public Design Consultancy<\/strong><\/a>)<\/strong> covering urban perspectives and BASIS Vinschgau-Venosta<\/strong><\/a> providing their experiences in a rural area. In the afternoon, the Platoniq Foundation<\/strong><\/a> will show and discuss their digital design for democratisation in Open Technologies<\/em>. On Friday morning, we can enjoy the convivial art activism of Milano Mediterranea<\/strong><\/a> and Ivan Txaparro<\/strong><\/a> (resonar lab<\/strong><\/a>) in Social Movements<\/em>. In the evening, we learn from the Radical Reform<\/em> struggle of Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen<\/strong><\/a>, which is challenging capitalist property relations in the housing sector by pushing for the transfer of private real estate companies to public, democratically controlled ownership. All this is going along with 7×7 talks<\/strong>, about 20 hands-on workshops<\/strong>, presentations of over 50 papers and visual essays<\/strong>, meals, walks, dancing<\/strong>, \u2026 The Saturday is all on Joining forces \u2013 towards a union of transformation-engaged designers*<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Full program below<\/a> \u2198\ufe0e<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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hope ~ reclaiming the future<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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We explore hope ~<\/em><\/strong> not as naive optimism, but as a collective and empowering practice. In the face of ecological collapse, social injustice, and the rise of authoritarian forces, we ask: how can we reclaim the future <\/em><\/strong>through design and art in Connected Alternatives, Open Technologies.  Social Movements and Radical Reforms. <\/em><\/strong>These four tracks of transformation help us to guide the discussion. They complement each other and criss-cross paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Connected Alternatives<\/em>, we mean the multitude of mostly small and local projects and communities, which are practicing now, what is needed for a future society, based on commoning, care and circularity. They are or should be more and more interconnected \u2013 joining forces for mutual support and learning from each other, and for scaling-out instead of becoming co-opted or marginalised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social Movements <\/em>are more dynamic \u2013 generating momentum in their peak phases, but then subside again. Opposed to the niche alternatives, they change the public debate and sometimes even dominant narratives and power relations. When things go well, niches are prospering in the larger landscape changed through social movements, while social movements benefit from the more stabile economic and cultural basis build up in niches over decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through Radical Reforms<\/em> the state and its institutions can provide favourable framework conditions for commoning, care and circularity. Ideally, they help to strengthen emancipatory transformations, for example by providing more time (reduction of labour time) and space (commons-public partnerships). They can foster inclusion and care, while hindering destruction of the basis of life. Such reforms usually are achieved through the pressure of social movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u203aTechnofixes\u2039 are the naive believe or strategic message, that business-as-usual can proceed, because technological progress will save us. Still, without doubt advanced technologies are required, also for distributed renewable energy production, the automatisation of unhealthy work and the democratisation of economy. But technologies need to be free and open to all, otherwise only the elites will benefit, and democratic control will be impossible. Thus, Open Technologies<\/em> matter, also as instruments in the other transformation approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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