Kicking off this week is the much-anticipated 2025: Forecasting Futures, an exhibition supported by a workshop and conference, running as part of LCC’s summer programme of public events.
2025: Forecasting Futures invites audiences to speculate about the key design trends which will shape and transform our everyday lives. The event series is organised by LCC MA Design Management students.
Underpinned by futurology and design trend forecasting, the exhibition (opening on Friday 13 May) will be curated from responses around five provocations: digital disruptions; ageing populations; architectural visions; consumer lifestyles and cultural institutions.
Future forecasts and creative responses to the provocations have been elicited from student, staff, industry and public audiences, and include visual, sound, 3D and written responses.
The supporting 2025: Future Forecasting workshop and conference, which both take place on Thursday 19 May, will allow audiences to share opinions on future design trends, hear from industry experts and explore utopian/dystopian thinking.
MA Design Management student, Tari Eguruze is involved in managing 2025: Forecasting Futures.
Ahead of the launch, we chatted to MA Design Management student Tari Eguruze, who offered some pre-event insights and forecasts of his own:
Why do you think forecasting futures is particularly important in the design world?
“I guess all of us as designers are working to move our way up in the design world, but the design world is changing and we need to be aware of how. We can’t just be working towards a singular vision, we have to understand that things are evolving, for the better and for the worse.
“It’s important to have foresight into what could go wrong and what we could be striving for within human-centred, digital, architectural, cultural and consumer design.”
What has your involvement been in the project so far?
“At the moment I’m focusing on the workshop that we’re running to support the 2025: Forecasting Futures exhibition and conference. I’ve also been acting as one of the contacts reporting on progress to our tutor, Nicky Ryan, and communicating next steps to the rest of the class.
“We’ve been scheduling and detailing the 2025: Forecasting Futures workshop and thinking about capacity and practical requirements. The workshop is going to be a great platform for people to meet those involved with the exhibition, discuss ideas and come up with their own visions for the future.
“Although it’s been difficult and stressful organising the events, it’s been a really useful experience. Out of everyone in the class, I think I want to try and build a career which is most similar to this kind of thing.
“I’m trying to get into this specific area, so even though it’s challenging, I appreciate that these are steps I need to take in terms of learning how everything comes together and what’s expected of everyone involved.
“It’s all about keeping everyone in the loop, ensuring we’re on the same page and being clear about what needs to be done, so we can quickly make decisions and move on to the next action.”
MA Design Management and Cultures students at work.
Did you submit any creative work in response to the 2025: Forecasting Futures provocations?
“It’s not in the exhibition, but I am working on a piece which is aligned with the architectural visions strand of the 2025: Forecasting Futures events. It looks at the future of creative interior office spaces and the current trend of overly innovative and interactive office spaces, and questions whether this is really necessary to nurture creativity.
“I think Google started this trend where it had these crazy offices with slides! But personally, I prefer to work in very plain, basic spaces without much distraction or visual noise.
“I’ve created a model depicting a person working in a white room, then recorded myself interacting with it: I take the person out of the room and put them back, but coloured in to represent internal creativity and how this flows out of the individual and spreads around the room.
Tari Eguruze’s ‘work in progress’ on future visions for spaces which nurture creativity.
“I also demonstrate the opposite by painting the room to represent external creativity, and show how this can sometimes stifle a creative individual.
“I represented this idea as a 3D model with painted figures and painted walls that you could switch in and out. I took pictures of the different variations and filmed my responses to the changing environments. The final piece is essentially a video telling a story, to which I’m planning to add speech bubbles and a narrative to make it more engaging and interesting.
“I’m not saying these issues apply to everyone, but this piece of work aims to challenge future interior architectural designers to consider individuals, and highlights that not everyone can work in complicated spaces. You can’t just force interior architecture upon people, you have to understand the needs of the people using the space.”
Were there any future forecasts from others which took you by surprise?
“Someone submitted something which looked like a jellyfish/brain – I can’t remember which of the provocations this was responding to!
“The most surprising thing, was just the range of creative responses we received. We were worried that we might get a lot of responses in a similar format, but there’s 3D work, posters, films, text and even some vases and teapots which explore the future of British parliament!”
What can visitors expect to see at the exhibition and conference?
“2025: Forecasting Futures is not just trying to show one futuristic vision; we wanted to the exhibition to physically depict a fragmented and disparate view of the future.
“Besides being intrigued by the pieces of work on show, hopefully visitors will see how the spaces themselves explore each theme a bit more.
“The range of art and design pieces on show is really interesting, and I think visitors will be really engaged in what artists are doing at the minute.
“I hope people will leave feeling encouraged to look deeper into the ideas presented within 2025: Forecasting futures.”
What’s the forecast for your own future in 2025?
“Hopefully I’ll be organising my own design events and conferences, but it’ll be less stressful because I’ll have gained so much experience from this one…! I’ll probably be in London, but if I become experienced enough, then who knows? Possibly elsewhere…”
To find out more about the 2025: Forecasting Futures events, visit:
Exhibition: 13-21 May
Workshop
19 May 2 – 4pm
(booking required)
Conference
19 May 6 – 9pm
(booking required)