 Every time you do a design, you are doing a political act. Always. Want to know why? Watch this video. Hi, my name is Consola Renetti, I am a designer, architect and PhD candidate. And this channel is all about design, sustainability and other treats. And today, we have one of those treats. For the purpose of this video, I am going to take a free interpretation of who caused understanding of politics. This meaning what I understand of who caused view of politics. Politics are the relations that occur between power. On one hand, humans are the ones that participate in these negotiations. In these negotiations, power gains an intention of its own, beyond the individuals that exercise it. And on the other hand, people become who they are as a result of these negotiations, of this power relation. Eighteen years ago, the event of nuclear weapons changed the course of the world, as well as the war. Since that time, all mankind has been struggling to escape from the darkening prospect of mass destruction on Earth. Design is political act, always. You have been educated in a discipline where aesthetics has traditionally been set in the center of it. And lately, the focus has changed to a more human, central perspective. Today it's moving to an ecological, political and systemic one. Every time you do a design, you are doing a political act, always. Making it simple, politics are the conversations, discussions, agreements, decisions we make or avoid to make. In order to define which perspective, paradigm, view is the one that is going to reign us. The one that's going to define our future. And remember, design is about projecting the future to come. Probably, you have heard that version where politics is the art of governing the people. That conception comes from the time where gender, social, economical and Russian frontiers were unbridgeable. It's very convenient to keep you calm. Others will take decisions for you. Times have changed and now we have human rights. We have environmental rights. We have social rights. We have freedom of choice. Basic standards have been established. The idea of the Greek democracy played only by the people of Haftens is obsolete, especially since that was only a small percentage of its population, slaves, free non-citizens and women had no participation in this democracy. If you look at other civilizations at the same time, like Mapuches here in Chile, who didn't have a hierarchy structure, they had leaders but not the central power. Power was distributed among the whole Mapuches nation. This made it impossible for the Incas to conquer them. And the same fate suffered the Spaniards in the 16th century. In Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, they killed Montezuma. And the Aztec Empire collapsed. Mapuches didn't have a leader to kill and until today they are in a state of rebellion with the Chilean government. They claim they have been in war for the last 500 years to recover the land. And what is the relation of this story with design? Power and decisions. When it's distributed with the members of the group, that guarantees the stability of the group. When all the power is centralized, the possibilities of collapsing are great. In design, this is what has happened. The belief that there is a correct way and a unique origin are two of the main reasons why our discipline is confronting its more crucial challenge. We must understand that design in order to evolve has to be done harmoniously by the whole community. All voices must be heard. We are in an epoch at which the spreading of the western neoliberal democracy has become the accepted form of governance. Democracy has been paired with an economic neoliberal model to create and imagine an ideal status for all nations. They call this globalization. Since the rising of the United States as a ruler after the Cold War, there was only one way accepted of understanding our lives. They sold us the American dream. Design had to respond to the neoliberal model. All of its resources and efforts were pushed into satisfying the demands of this ruling philosophy. Return of investment became the king. Design only cared of how to get the best immediate benefit. Today, he forgot to project into the future. Design sold his soul. Forgetting he was supposed to create opportunities for a better future. Pre-Columbian design. The Bar House. Russian constructs revism and others were all connected with the political ideal of where they develop. During globalization it connected with the economical ideal, not the political dream. Some nations which regret from democracy are left aside of the selected ones, the free developed countries, unless of course your economic power is so huge then your non-democratic governance could be ignored. If you don't respect human rights, environmental rights, but you fabricate our new toys, who cares? And we designed those toys. We have become a cynical society. We turn our face in another direction when the movie we are surfing is not worth our likes. Design as a discipline has become an expert in doing so. Every time you accept a project as a designer, you are making a political decision. If you decide to work with a certain company, you are making a political decision. If you don't question the commission and just accept it, you are making a political decision. Remember, politics is the negotiation or absence of negotiation in this distribution of power. When you decide to work with the companies whose interest is to maximize its profits with no concern of the environmental impact or the social impact of its actions, you are making a political decision. Ok, so it's simple. Stop working for the dark side. Stop working for the corrupted, neoliberal, classist, racist, environmental-assessing corporations. From now on, you will be a role model to follow. Not really. That's only the big picture, and political decisions are also made in a smaller scale. When you decide in which sub-discipline arena, branch of design you are going to work, specialize, you are making a political decision. Are you going for a commercial approach or a social one? Who's going to be the central human group to focalize in? Is there going to be a deep eco-perspective, or are you just going to give it a green-wash one? Deciding if you become a communication expert or a product one involves a political decision. If you are going to become a car designer, have you thought of the environmental impact of your future work? Wouldn't it be better to become a transport designer? And if you are a director of a design school, what are you going to teach your students? Fashion? And tell them it's design? Maybe you should see one of my previous videos, 10 things that are not designed. I'll leave the link at the end of this video. But let's go inside the project itself. Every time you make a decision in material, color, textures, relations with the user, life cycle of the product, images you use, you are making a political decision. Yes, in every simple small decision you are doing so. If you realize that design is the creation of future possibilities and that it is a complex discipline, you will understand that in every small decision you are pointing in which direction is the project going to move and with it the life of the user. Is it going to be a disposal of product, a long lasting product? Are you solving a requirement or creating an opportunity? Do you protect or destroy the environment? Are you using materials that have been tested in animals? Did you really research about your project or just Google it? Is your using making decisions with you or you are making other decisions for them? Without even consulting, do you know if the computer you are using to design the one I'm using to edit this video comes from a country where human rights are not respected? Every single decision we make is a political act. We decide where the power concentrates. Yes, thinking this way can paralyze you, make you go nuts, but ignorance won't help you either. Having the ability to view the variables involved in a project will help you make informed decisions. Probably you can't change everything, but small changes at great scales are huge. If you are in a developing country or in a developed one, how are you planning to conduct your career decisions? How are you going to educate the new generation of designers? Are you going to keep repeating the model? Please make the correct political decisions because design is a political act always. Please don't forget to like and subscribe so you won't miss my next videos. Ciao!