Designing Peace

This digital exhibition accompanies Designing Peace now on view at Cooper Hewitt through August 6, 2023.

What would be possible if we were to design for peace?

Designing Peace explores the unique role design can play in pursuing peace and creating a more equitable world. The exhibition features design projects from around the globe that look at ways to create and sustain more durable peaceful interactions—from creative confrontations that challenge existing structures to designs that demand embracing justice and truth in a search for reconciliation.

Visitors will encounter a wide range of design responses to the underlying reasons for conflict and division and will be encouraged to consider their own agency in designing peace.

PUBLICATION

The accompanying publication, Designing Peace: Building a Better Future Now, is an intersectional snapshot of the actions—culturally diverse and wide-ranging in scale—that are currently in play around the world.

Offering perspectives on peace through essays, interviews, critical maps, project profiles, data visualizations, and art, this book conveys the momentum that design can gain in effecting a peace-filled future. Learn more.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This exhibition was organized by Cynthia E. Smith, Curator of Socially Responsible Design, with Caroline O’Connell, Curatorial Assistant.

Digital platform design by Linked by Air.

SUPPORT

Designing Peace is made possible with lead support from

Major support is provided by Lisa Roberts and David Seltzer.

Generous support is also provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Helen and Edward Hintz, and the Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery Endowment Fund.

Additional support is provided by Agnes Gund, the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York as part of the Dutch Culture USA program, the Cooper Hewitt Master’s Program Fund, the Netherland-America Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

In-kind support is provided by Tretford Americas and Consolidated Flooring.

Objects from the Exhibition

No objects have been associated with this exhibition.