Design is never not political. Every design practice is based upon decisions, which in turn reflect personal ideas and interests. Whatstodo searches for strategies how to address this responsibility. The project’s aim is to encourage critical reflection upon our own practices, drawing from our own experiences to provide examples, open discussions and highlight incentives regarding ways to approach the political in design. The website is organized around self-commitment as a central principle, emphasizing the necessity of politically informed conduct.
By formulating and signing design-political positions, we aim to accumulate a collective catalogue that will continue to grow as the community of participants becomes bigger and more diverse. Whatstodo is an open platform, a network, a tool and an experiment that will keep changing over time as we learn and adapt. At the moment we are working towards the release of the website in summer 2021 – we, that is: Jandra Böttger (freelance curator and editor, who is currently preparing her PhD project in Philosophy), Rana Karan (independent graphic designer), Béla Meiers (independent communication designer), Johanna Schäfer (communication designer, editor and translator) and Arno Schlipf (communication designer and web developer).
