Alastair Fuad-Luke

Welcome to this new episode of Sumo: the first one entirely in English, because this is a series that came about from a partnership between Sumo and Porto-Design Biennale 2021. Throughout the next few months I will talk to the curators who are conceiving and building this biennale dedicated to alter-realities. I begin this new series with the main curator, a fascinating character called Alastair Fuad-Luke. A facilitator, educator, and researcher, whose life has been devoted to thinking and applying design to a better, more balanced, more sustainable world. Alastair has in fact published several books on this subject, such as Design Activism in 2009 or The Eco-design Handbook in 2002. In our conversation, which will be released in two parts, we talk about the life and thought of this activist, born in the North of England. Among many very pertinent ideas, I kept a specific one, which I find to be most revealing about this entire biennale of 2021: If you design the present, you actually change the future. I hope you enjoy the first part of our talk. In a week’s time I will release the 2nd part. Good listening!