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Massive Change: The Future of Global Design

Earth Simulator

Courtesy of JAMSTEC/Earth Simulator Center

About

Massive Change: The Future of Global Design is an exhibition that changes the way you think about design, similar to how contemporary design is changing the way we live in the world. Design affects all aspects of our lives and holds the possibility of changing the very nature of human life itself. Massive Change is an exhibition grounded in a provocative proposition. It is a celebration of the human capacity to change the world and a call to recognize both the power and the responsibility of design.

Conceived by the internationally renowned designer Bruce Mau, the exhibition invites viewers to consider the dynamic future of design culture and the real choices we must make. Massive Change is dramatic, engaging, and critical, immersing visitors in a series of powerful encounters with the latest innovations in the fields of urban design, transportation, information design, revolutionary material, and more. The exhibition unfolds in a series of 10 general themes that address the fundamental role of design in all aspects of human life, from manufacturing and transportation to health and the military. In each area, visitors encounter the objects, images, ideas, and people that are reshaping the role of the world of design.

Design has a ubiquitous presence, one that guides our everyday actions, shaping our consciousness, reconfiguring our spaces, and modifying our lives. With such a dynamic force at our disposal, we must acknowledge the power and the opportunity it presents, and so Massive Change is conceived in the tradition of the manifesto. It is a public declaration of the current state of design, a call to recognize its potential, and a challenge to accept responsibility for design in the contemporary world. In keeping with its theme, Massive Change is a global project that taps into the ideas and innovations of today's leading thinkers and producers, and includes a book published by Phaidon Press (coauthored by Bruce Mau, Jennifer Leonard, and the Institute without Boundaries).

Funding

The Massive Change exhibition and tour is a project by Bruce Mau Design and the Institute without Boundaries, commissioned and organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Chicago presentation is generously sponsored by Target.

Additional generous support is provided by Nancy Lauter McDougal and Alfred L. McDougal, Andrea and Jim Gordon, Jack and Sandra Guthman, David Herro and Jay Franke, the Chauncey and Marion McCormick Family Foundation, Helen and Sam Zell, Susan and Robert A. Wislow, Dan and Patty Walsh, Jennifer Aubrey, Marlene Breslow-Blitstein and Berle Blitstein, and Richard F. Tomlinson, II.