How can design protect us from violence? What can it do to identify new forms of violence, and old ones? Alert us to their dangers? Shield us from them? Repair the damage they cause? And prevent repetitions? In this episode, Design Emergency’s cofounders, curator Paola Antonelli and author Alice Rawsthorn, discuss one of design’s most important roles: defending us from violence.

Paola and Alice discuss how design has done this throughout history, while noting that our vulnerability to violence is escalating at a time when our lives are increasingly turbulent, and violence is evolving at unprecedented speed with ever more ominous consequences. As well as considering how violence affects us in the form of wars, bigotry, the climate emergency, refugee crisis and abuses of technology, they identify ingenious design responses to those threats. From women’s safe spaces in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh and heartening symbols of collective pride like the rainbow flag, to an app that helps people to find safe routes through Indian cities, Paola and Alice describe how thoughtful and innovative design can – and does – empower us.

Thank you for joining Paola and Alice’s conversation on Design and Violence. You’ll find images of the projects they describe on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. And you can tune into this episode of Design Emergency and others on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and other podcast platforms. Please join us for future episodes when we will interview more global design leaders at the forefront of forging positive change.

Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

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Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn on Design and Violence