Regenerative Design
The Weltmuseum Wien as a Lab for the Future
Antilopenmaske, 1960er Jahre, Unbekannter Meister der Kurumba © Weltmuseum
Wien
In collaboration with the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Weltmuseum
Wien is reinterpreting the ethnological museum as not merely a repository for silent artefacts, but as a laboratory for future,
globally sustainable lifestyles. By learning from diverse knowledge systems, museum collections can become tools for sustainable
design strategies.
As part of the Design Revolution Now! design theory course at the
Regenerative Design Lab of the University of Applied Arts, students are examining around 25 objects from the Weltmuseum Wien
collection to derive regenerative design principles. The focus is on how humans, animals, non-human organisms, and nature
collectively create worlds.
In four thematic ‘islands’, traditional views of the Global North on knowledge, time,
object status, and purpose are questioned and challenged. Contributions from the fields of design, transformational psychology,
environmental law, and performance broaden our perspective, inviting us to radically reconsider our approach to consumption,
design, and progress.
