Gateways to the Polycene — 2023

An experiment in decentralization, our fifth symposium consisted of an exhibition in fall 2023 and sponsorship support for two events in spring 2024 — Debates in AI curated by Marisa Mazria Katz and Daniel Lefcourt at RISD and Design Summit 01 with Director of Conversations, Ijlal Muzzafar hosted by Hosted by the Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts and Design (MDSVAD) at Beaconhouse National University (BNU).

The exhibition was hosted at RISD and explored faculty, staff, and student responses to the Polycene — a research concept we are advancing as a framework for the future of design and creative practice that is necessarily entangled with planetary scale challenges such as climate change, decolonization, artificial intelligence, and systems collapse.