In the "Massive Change" exhibition that opened at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Bruce Mau shows how design promises to improve the human condition.

"In nearly every field that design touches, the long-term developments that we can see are hugely positive," says Mau.

Whether it is global warming, homelessness, oppressive governments or traffic jams, designers have a way to dispense with these problems in coming years, with solutions ranging from vegetables modified to become edible vaccines to factory-built housing for 21st-century megacities. In "Massive Change," anybody who helps develop the capacity for progress qualifies as a designer, whether it's a computer scientist working on open-source software or an animal breeder creating a featherless chicken better able to survive in hot climates.

"On the one hand, the mood of the day seemed to be very negative around the world," says Mau. "But at the same time, I saw designers doing work with the capacity absolutely to change the world."

For Mr. Mau, it makes little sense to pull objects out of their social and political contexts. "There's this old notion of objects being somehow separate from their environments, from the flows that produce them and support them and absorb them. That idea is over."

Via The New York Times.
See also the massivechange website.