The Black Book Interview Project, London

The Black Book Interview Project London
Tuesday 18th September, 2012
Seventeen, 17 Kingsland Road, E2 8AA

Anna Bates, Hannah Barton, Revital Cohen, Beatrice Galilee, Elizabeth Glickfield, Janna Graham, Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, Julia Lohmann, Burn Kim, Pete Maxwell, Steven Ounanian, Jerszy Seymour, Faye Toogood + guests

Is current discourse on design failing design? The Black Book Interview Project is an ongoing project that aims to foster a culture of independent design critique by creating various testing grounds for the praxis of design discourse to occur.

Situated in a gallery space over the course of one day and formatted as a series of conversations, a handful of designers were given an hourly slot in which to host a critical dialogue. A selection of writers and designers were also invited to be present on the day to document the dialogues responding to them through various modes and means, including live transcription, design writing, journalism, illustration and cartography.

Documentation and the responses were then compiled into a physical journal. Crystallized as discourse the hand-held publication is designed to be used, rejected, or responded to and will be freely distributed across the London Design Festival, as an antidote to the Global Design Forum.

The Black Book Interview Project embraces experimentation and risk, understanding that dialogue is fundamental to developing a critique for contemporary design. We stand for an investment in the production, distribution and circulation of an emerging type of conceptual and critical design thinking.

The result was that each of the dialogues were autonomous, derived from the designer’s own interests and choice of interlocutor, whilst the different processes of documentation were testament to the experimental nature of this project.

The intention of The Black Book Interview Project is to contribute to contemporary conceptual and critical design research and practice. It is local not global, it is for emerging design practice not leading industry professionals and it is about difference and independence, not sovereignty and commercialization.