British Indian architectural designer, researcher and curator Rhiarna Dhaliwal has many strings to her bow. An alumnus of the Design Museum and former teacher at the Royal College of Art, she is the co-founder of interdisciplinary collective Xcessive Aesthetics, which plays with data and alternative realities to create mind-bending immersive experiences.
This year, Dhaliwal has guest-curated the Global Design Forum, which returns to the V&A South Kensington from September 12 to 14 as part of the London Design Festival (September 12 to 20). The three-day programme, titled Worlds in Motion, brings together leading voices from design, architecture, science, culture and business to explore how the exchange of ideas, disciplines and perspectives might shape the way we live. Entry is free, but booking a ticket in advance is recommended.
Here, Dhaliwal shares the free talks she won’t be missing.
In Conversation: Designing Possible Worlds: Anab Jain & Debika Ray
Anab’s practice feels like a perfect expression of this year’s wider Worlds in Motion theme. Through future forecasting and speculative design, she questions the choices we are making in the present while considering what might come next, all through a social and more-than-human-centred lens. September 12.
Shared Intelligence
One not to miss. Bringing together designers, artists and thinkers working at the forefront of technology, Shared Intelligence moves beyond the hype and anxiety surrounding AI to ask how we can engage critically and creatively with emerging technologies while retaining a sense of agency over the futures they are shaping. September 12.
Shared Ecologies
This might fly slightly under the radar, but it is an incredibly important conversation. It explores how designers are rethinking our relationship with nature, approaching it as a living system with which design must learn to collaborate, negotiate and coexist. September 12.
Keynote: Es Devlin CBE
An obvious choice. Es Devlin’s extraordinary multidisciplinary practice moves between art, architecture, performance, technology and design, embodying the exchange between disciplines and ideas at the heart of this year’s Worlds in Motion theme. September 12.
The Shape of Colour
I’m particularly excited about this panel because it approaches colour from completely different directions. It brings together perspectives from design, science, perception and visual culture to unpack something we experience constantly, but perhaps rarely stop to question. September 13.
L-Acoustics: The Power of Sound
A fascinating conversation about something that is often overlooked in design: how sound shapes our experience of spaces and atmospheres, and why listening should be considered as fundamental to designing environments as what we can see or touch. September 13.
After Extraction
An urgent conversation about what design looks like when we begin to move beyond extractive methods of material production and infrastructure. It brings together practitioners who are reconsidering materials, resources and ecological systems to ask how we might design with greater responsibility. September 14.
Keynote: Asif Khan MBE
Closing the Forum, Asif Khan feels particularly fitting for the final day, titled Designing Common Grounds. His practice moves fluidly between architecture, art and design while continually returning to the question of how spaces can bring people together. September 14.
The Global Design Forum runs from 12–14 September 12–14 at the V&A South Kensington’s Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre.
