“Our mission at Global Grad Show is to open the field of design to participants from as many places as possible. Dubai is the ideal place for it.” Curator Brendan McGetrick explains why student work is design in its purest and most potentially valuable form.
With the kick-off of Global Grad Show less than one month away, Curator Brendan McGetrick explains why student work is design in its purest and most potentially valuable form:
“Design is generally misunderstood as a discipline based on aesthetics. In my experience, the most innovative design work tends to look beyond beauty to focus on problem solving. This is especially true of the work emerging from design schools, where young creative people are encouraged to apply their talents to the issues that they care most about. Free from the commercial pressures of professional life, they use design to improve the world.
“The projects that we’re exhibiting at Global Grad Show reveal design in its purest and most potentially valuable form. They are by no means indifferent to aesthetics, but their impulse is fundamentally humanitarian: they apply creativity and technical rigor to expand life’s possibilities. In the process, they provide a key to better understanding the world and its enormous diversity of experiences.
To name just a few:
- OnewareA kitchen for people with one arm
- TippyTalkAn app that allows non-verbal children to communicate with their parents
- Water PotA manual washing machine that prevents the back problems, skin irritation, and accidental drowning that occur in hand wash basins in informal settlements
- Favo A shower that users operate with their feet for communities without running water
“Global Grad Show includes work from 50 schools from 30 countries on 6 continents. It is the first truly international exhibition and forum dedicated to design students. As such, it provides an unprecedented overview of the technologies that will shape the next generation of design and the issues that will inspire the next generation of designers.
“Our mission at Global Grad Show is to open the field of design to participants from as many places as possible. Dubai is the ideal place for it. Conceived and constructed to maximize connection, Dubai is the optimal meeting place – open, energetic, unburdened by the complex histories and entrenched institutions of other cities. It provides a fair playing field for students from everywhere to meet. It is a forward-looking, focused on the future and investing enormously in education and innovation. It’s an honour to be a part of this dynamic city’s design week.” –Brendan McGetrick
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