This year’s Change Lab will be informed by two key ideas Place & Space.

Place and space have taken on particular resonance with the looming uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, focusing us to re-think how we inhabit and interact in spaces. Trend forecaster Li Edelkoort, speaks of how we are facing a global recession as the virus disrupts global supply chains and transportation networks.

In light of our ongoing experience of Covid19, we find ourselves living in a strange void, disconnected by human touch, reliant on virtual platforms to remain present in each other’s lives. Our interior worlds take on a new resonance as we cocoon ourselves within a familiar place whilst existing in an unfamiliar time and space. We approach an uncertain future as patterns of daily routines and rituals that define our lives erode and reconfigure to a slower pace. We look inward and imagine ways to calm our fleeting thoughts as there is no longer a definitive answer as to how long this experience will last. Within this time, we re-think about how to inhabit spaces and live our lives within a 2km radius. Our concept of place and space is challenged as social distancing is defining our human interactions; measuring sticks have taken on new meaning as we calculate what is the appropriate meterage to avoid human contact.

Context and Collaboration