Unpleasant Design and it's Discontents - Talk by Selena Savic by Esker Foundation

Unpleasant Design is a design phenomenon that promotes social control through discomfort, pain, and persuasion. It raises the value of urban space by preventing specific use scenarios such as sleeping on a park bench or loitering in a shopping mall. In this talk, designer, researcher, and artist Selena Savic described some “stars” of unpleasant design and focused on patterns in the design of public space where these silent agents replace the need for supervision, and therefore condition our behaviour.

Esker Foundation provides free public programming to encourage participation and to increase accessibility to contemporary art. Programs are created in response to, and in tandem with, our current exhibitions. This talk was presented in response to the exhibition 'A wall is just a wall (and nothing more at all)' by Kapwani Kiwanga. More information at www.eskerfoundation.art