Friedrich von Borries shows through small interventions that design is political. On a VW Beetle he drapes a cloth that looks like a swastika flag and reminds us of the beginnings as a KdF car ("Strength through Joy").
Photo: Robert Wagner, ZDF/ Kobalt

SUSTAINABILITY
Guilt and Atonement in Design

"The Power of Design" is the title of a recent documentary by Reinhild Dettmer-Finke, a collaboration between ZDF/ARTE and Kobalt Documentary.

5/6/2021

The documentary "The Power of Design" by Reinhild Dettmer-Finke tackles the question of what task contemporary design should fulfil, where design has long since ceased to be just about making our lives easier, more practical and more beautiful, creating incentives to buy and boosting consumption. It shows in an exemplary way how contemporary design practice takes on the responsibility of designing in a resource-saving and sustainable way. Among others, experts who convey how design shapes systems through the creation of objects – such as Mateo Kries, Director of the Vitra Design Museum, Professor Alison J. Clarke, Director of the Victor J. Papanek Foundation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and design theorist Friedrich von Borries - have their say. In addition, forward-looking approaches will be showcased that are already successfully putting the vision of sustainable design into practice: From contributions to the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne 2019, which was entitled "Systems, not stuff", to the projects of solar designer Marjan van Aubel, who explores alternative, aesthetic forms of energy production. (am)

"The Power of Design" is available free of charge in the ARTE Media Library until 27 May 2021.