Papanek Symposium 2026

Fielding Design: Reshaping Future Pasts

Organisers Alison J Clarke, Tanishka Kachru, Babitha George, Shemal Pandya & Heng Zhi

8–9 October 2026, online event

Programme and registration to be announced.

The Papanek Symposium 2026, a collaboration between the Papanek Foundation, University of Applied Arts Vienna, the National Institute of Design (NID) and Quicksand Design consultancy, India, explores the practical, theoretical and social implications of contemporary design ‘in the field’; highlighting the imperative, and challenge, of shaping design and social policies from the ground-up. As international hybrid event, it comprises online expert presentations and panel discussions with onsite workshops, offering a unique insight into the legacies of past development agendas and the futures for design in shaping worlds and tackling social inequalities.

Bringing together designers, design strategists, social innovators and key thinkers from across India, the Papanek Symposium 2026, addresses vital contemporary questions of the discipline: What are the implications of design’s dispersed role as a mode of applied social science and the legacy of design and development models?

How, if at all, are the forays design strategists make into indigenous design cultures mutually beneficial? How are the asymmetrical power relations of corporate, NGO and small-scale social initiatives played out in practice? The event is aimed at design experts, students, social innovators, social scientists, anthropologists and ethnographers, strategists and policy makers and is open to diverse global audience.

This event is supported by the FWF Austrian Science Fund: Design Anthropology: Cold War Industrial Design & Development DOI 10.55776/PAT4411223