by Gabrielle Kennedy
At last week’s What Design Can Do conference in Amsterdam, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Bert Koenders said that diplomacy and design need to forge closer ties to tackle the massive hurdles that lie ahead.
“I have never seen so many human right violations, and such a large flow of people as a result,” he told the packed crowd at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ about the current 65 million refugees in the world.
While safely avoiding explicit mention of Brexit, the warning rang sincere. “We are obliged as creators to see what is going on, to understand it, to build alliances and to confront this huge challenge.”
As the final speaker in a lineup of inspiring international guests, Koenders referred back to his early career working with refugees in West Africa, sharing his simple but strong insight - the importance of understanding refugees as subjects, not objects. “They have lived a life, they have fled terror, and now they are hungry,” he says. “The next step is their future.”
Koenders also referred to the concerns and fears held by the people living in the countries where refugees are arriving, admitting that harmonious and fair assimilation represents an enormous challenge. “It’s getting harder to have open dialogue about cultural differences … but let’s not have a shouting match.”
And before announcing the five winners of the What Design Can Do #RefugeeChallenge, Koenders talked about how his own profession has changed over the centuries. "In the past we built lavish reception buildings to dazzle spectators,” he said. “We used design to display our wealth and power. Amsterdam built a town hall of such magnificence that it was converted to a Royal Palace when we became a monarchy 150 years later.”
But the role of design has changed, and today is asking more socially relevant questions. “Now design can also be transformative,” Koenders said. “It can make the world better.”
Which is exactly why old-school diplomacy needs to harness the vast potential of culture by forging, in this case, a closer partnership with design. “I think it is the role of governance to develop a fresh vision for international cultural policy,” Koenders said. “For this we need to find more ways for culture to contribute because good design can not only be beautiful … it can transcend boundaries and speak to nations.”
Design Academy Eindhoven would like to congratulate all the #RefugeeChallenge entries and wish the five winners great success in developing their ideas further.
Read more about the competition, the five winners and their projects here: http://www.whatdesigncando.com/challenge/finalists/
