By bringing things into the world, designers shape our understanding of what is possible. Design is therefore not a neutral discipline. Even when it is not driven by explicit political intent, it carries political dimensions through its materials, modes of production, processes of standardisation and questions of access.
“Positions on Freedom” approaches design as a practice deeply embedded in social, ecological and economic systems. Design does not only produce solutions; it also generates exclusions, hierarchies and new forms of normality. Within this framework, freedom does not appear as a given condition, but as something that is continually shaped through these processes.
A central observation runs throughout the exhibition: freedom is inherently ambivalent. It can only be understood in relation to its limits, whether spatial, social or individual. Design makes these tensions visible and tangible, while also revealing the consequences of unfreedom.
The exhibition treats its title as a method. Structured in three parts, it unfolds the topic as an open field: through newly commissioned works by invited designers, a reader featuring theoretical contributions and conversations and a group exhibition developed through an open call and in collaboration with the museum.
Furthermore, the exhibition is guided by a curatorial position that does not understand freedom as the right of the strongest. Instead, it frames freedom as grounded in universal human rights and in forms of solidarity and empathy — among people and in relation to the environment.
The exhibition is an official project within the framework of World Design Capital 2026 and was realised as part of the thing Fellowship, an initiative by the thing Magazine. Developed in partnership with USM and the Fondation USM, it explores how freedom can be negotiated within the tension between institutional structures and corporate interests.
By bringing things into the world, designers shape our understanding of what is possible. Design is therefore not a neutral discipline. Even when it is not driven by explicit political intent, it carries political dimensions through its materials, modes of production, processes of standardisation and questions of access.
“Positions on Freedom” approaches design as a practice deeply embedded in social, ecological and economic systems. Design does not only produce solutions; it also generates exclusions, hierarchies and new forms of normality. Within this framework, freedom does not appear as a given condition, but as something that is continually shaped through these processes.
A central observation runs throughout the exhibition: freedom is inherently ambivalent. It can only be understood in relation to its limits, whether spatial, social or individual. Design makes these tensions visible and tangible, while also revealing the consequences of unfreedom.
The exhibition treats its title as a method. Structured in three parts, it unfolds the topic as an open field: through newly commissioned works by invited designers, a reader featuring theoretical contributions and conversations and a group exhibition developed through an open call and in collaboration with the museum.
Furthermore, the exhibition is guided by a curatorial position that does not understand freedom as the right of the strongest. Instead, it frames freedom as grounded in universal human rights and in forms of solidarity and empathy — among people and in relation to the environment.
The exhibition is an official project within the framework of World Design Capital 2026 and was realised as part of the thing Fellowship, an initiative by the thing Magazine. Developed in partnership with USM and the Fondation USM, it explores how freedom can be negotiated within the tension between institutional structures and corporate interests.