Design as a Political Object: The Necessary Positioning of the Designer as an Agent of Change.

Faced with what we could consider an act of connivance with the prevailing neoliberal model of leisure and production, the designer has become an apolitical, naïve and blind subject, immersed in the unthinking action of unlimited production. Humanity must feed 8 billion people while at the same time guaranteeing both its survival and the sustainability of the planet. Given this challenge, design must resituate the subject at the centre of the model in all its fields and specialities. This repositioning must come from a politicised, eco-centric and left-wing perspective to become an engine of social change, clearly and openly confronting extreme neoliberalism and its constant growth curve, a model that has placed humanity in a process of programmed self-extinction due to the prioritisation of earnings and profit over our own existence. The upcoming generations of design professionals will play a crucial role in the planet’s future. We are facing a challenge of capital proportions in which all actors in society and the market, among which design is one of the most relevant, will have to work together in unison. From within the interconnected international system that the academy represents, it falls on us to promote and encourage new attitudes that facilitate the repositioning of designers, removed but not alien to the perverse complexities of the extreme neoliberal market. For and because of this, we seek to enervate consciences and promote reflection in pursuit of the consequent revolt, which, if disregarded, will condemn us to failure as a society and as a species.