Tickets include all-day access to the symposium and entry to the More than Human exhibition. Lunch is not provided.
Join designers, architects, artists and researchers in a symposium that explores our creative relationship to non-human life and our responsibility to design for animals, environments and landscapes in order to help our planet thrive.
Take a deeper dive into the radical thinking and ground-breaking research featured in Design Museum’s More than Human exhibition, as we ask: Why has design traditionally only focused on the needs of humans, when we exist alongside billions of animals, plants and other living beings? And who are the designers and researchers who are already working to shift perspectives and practices towards collaborating with the natural world?
Highlights include: an appeal to More than Human thinking by philosopher Emanuele Coccia; conversations on storytelling and sustainability with artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg; an architectural panel with Lucia Pietroiusti, Andres Jaque and Paulo Tavares; a performance from artist Marcus Coates; and an interactive session led by systems designer Phoebe Tickell.
The event is hosted and chaired by the co-curators of the More than Human exhibition at the Design Museum: Justin McGuirk, Director of Future Observatory, and Rebecca Lewin, Head of Curatorial Programme at Future Observatory.
Tickets include all-day access to the symposium and entry to the More than Human exhibition. Lunch is not provided.
Emanuele Coccia
Emanuele Coccia is a philosopher and Associate Professor at EHESS in Paris. He has been a visiting professor at the universities of Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Düsseldorf, Columbia and Harvard. He is the author of La Vie sensible, The Life of Plants, Métamorphoses and Philosophie de la maison. In 2019 he took part in the "Trees" exhibition held at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris. He edited the catalogue for the 23rd Triennale di Milano, Unknown Unknowns: An Introduction to Mysteries.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg is a multidisciplinary artist examining our fraught relationships with nature and technology. Ginsberg received her PhD from London’s Royal College of Art, and her work is in collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and ZKM Karlsruhe. Recent commissions have been featured in Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana, at Bildmuseet in Umeå, and at the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon. In 2021, Ginsberg launched Pollinator Pathmaker, which received the European Commission’s S+T+ARTS Grand Prize in 2023.
Marcus Coates
Marcus Coates is an artist. His practice explores how we relate to each other and the wider world, often driven by the need for change with social and ecological impact in mind. He works collaboratively with members of the public, organisations, and experts across disciplines — including anthropologists, ornithologists, psychiatrists and musicians — to develop processes based on empathy and trust. Recent exhibitions include The Directors (Artangel, 2022) and The Limits of Humanity (Musée de l’Homme, 2021).
Lucia Pietroiusti
Curator, programmer and strategist Lucia Pietroiusti is Head of Ecologies at Serpentine, London, where she founded the General Ecology project and the Ecologies department. Working on research and experimentation at the intersection of art, ecology and systems, she is the curator of Sun & Sea (Venice Biennale, 2019 and international tour); and the co-editor of the More-than-Human (2020) and The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (2025).
Andres Jaque
Andrés Jaque is an architect, founder of the Office for Political Innovation and Professor and the Dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He has also been director of the Advanced Architectural Design Program at GSAPP, and visiting professor at Princeton University and The Cooper Union. In 2018 he co-curated Manifesta 12 in Palermo and he is the Chief Curator of the 13th Shanghai Biennale, Bodies of Water. His books include Superpowers of Scale (2020) and More-Than-Human (with Marina Otero and Lucia Pietroiusti) (2020),
Paulo Tavares
Paulo Tavares is an architect whose practice dwells at the frontiers between architecture, visual cultures and advocacy. He teaches at the University of Brasília and leads studio autônoma. Tavares’ projects have been exhibited worldwide and he is the author of various books that question the colonial legacies of modernity, including Des-Habitat (2019), Lucio Costa era Racista? (2022). His curatorial project Terra, in collaboration with Gabriela de Matos, was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023.
Phoebe Tickell
Phoebe Tickell is a scientist, systems thinker, and founder of Moral Imaginations, an activist design lab dedicated to catalysing just, regenerative futures by igniting humankind's moral imagination. Moral Imaginations has led groundbreaking work such as introducing, for the first time, more-than-human perspectives into UK policy-making, an award-winning partnership with Camden Council to build the imagination infrastructure of Camden and creating the first functional more-than-human citizens assembly. She lectures at Schumacher College and Harvard Business School.
Justin McGuirk
Justin McGuirk is the Director of Future Observatory, the national design research programme for the green transition, a partnership between the Design Museum and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He is also the former chief curator of the Design Museum. A writer and curator, he has produced numerous high-profile exhibitions and publishing projects. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Guardian, e-flux and many other art and design journals. He is the author or editor of ten books, including Radical Cities (2014) and More than Human: Making with the Living World (2025).
Rebecca Lewin
Rebecca Lewin is Head of Curatorial Programme at Future Observatory, the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition. Previously, she was Senior Curator at the Design Museum and Curator of Exhibitions and Design at Serpentine Galleries. She has produced independent exhibitions at Centre Pompidou Metz, Kestle Barton and Cell Project Space and has taught on courses at the Royal College of Art, Design Academy Eindhoven and Iceland University of Arts.
BOOKING INFORMATION
*Please note that this benefit only applies to one individual cardholding Member’s ticket and not those of additional guests.
If you need BSL interpretation, please book your ticket up to four weeks before the event date and indicate your request in the booking form.
Tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable. Visit our terms & conditions page for further information.
