Futuress is an online magazine and community space for design research that deals with the topics feminism, design and politics. As a queer intersectional feminist platform, Futuress strives to be a home for the people, histories, and perspectives that have been— and still often remain — underrepresented, oppressed, and ignored.
Futuress sees design as a lens to critically look at the world. The platform's goals are to radically democratize the access to design education and discourse as well as to empower and amplify the voices of womxn, BIPoC, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, migrants and refugees, and others from historically marginalized backgrounds.
The goals will be achieved by organising online workshops, lectures and panel discussions on design research, writing, and creative storytelling as well as by publishing articles, stories and essays in order to spread the Futuress word. A large number of texts can already be found on the platform, dealing for example with the colonial history of the color yellow. The next lecture Ladies of Letters will take place on 21 May and will be given by the multidisciplinary artist, designer and art historian Bahia Shehab.
The platform also aims to support the next generation of designers, researchers, journalists, and activists, who, scattered throughout the globe, problematize the role of design, and challenge power and privilege.
Futuress was reimagined in the summer of 2020 by Brazilian curator and design researcher Nina Paim, Swiss journalist and editor Corin Eliot Gisel, and British-German writer and editor Madeleine Morley. They came together to envision Futuress as a space for togetherness, generosity, resistance, growth, and social purpose. The platform was officially launched in November 2020 as a hybrid between an online magazine and a community space. Since then, the platform has grown into a vibrant platform for design politics, with active members dispersed through five continents.
Futuress has received a generous grant by Pro Helvetia as part of their “Close Distance” COVID-19 related temporary funding scheme, as well as financial support and guidance from the “What’s Next_Project” initiative of Zurich University of the Art’s Z-Kubator. Additional support in the form of mentoring was provided by the Swiss Cultural Challenge (SCC).
