WHAT DESIGN CAN DO MEXICO GNP THEMES
This edition explores INTELLIGENCE(S) ancestral, natural, collective and artificial, showcasing design that not only tackles climate and social crises but also asks: what knowledge, stories and data are we feeding the language systems shaping our world? By pairing age-old wisdom with emerging tech, we reimagine how design can regenerate ecosystems, cultures and economies.
ANCESTRAL AND NATURAL INTELLIGENCE
In this sixth edition of What Design Can Do México GNP, we pick up on the powerful closing words of Ronald Rael from the previous edition, where he invited us to rethink artificial intelligence through a deeper lens: ancestral intelligence.
This first block invites us to explore how the knowledge accumulated over centuries by Indigenous communities, non-human life forms, and entire ecosystems can guide us toward a truly sustainable model of development.
We believe the future is ancestral. And, in order to reach it, we must unlearn extractive, capitalist, and colonial systems that have prioritized the interests of a few over collective well-being and the health of the planet.
Here, design becomes a tool to reconnect with the Earth, to rethink our role within it, and to open ourselves to other ways of knowing, feeling, and coexisting. This block celebrates the decolonization of thought and the reconnection with the natural intelligences that surround us, and that we’ve ignored for far too long.
HUMANIZING TECHNOLOGY
In a world increasingly mediated by digital means, this segment invites us to pause and ask ourselves: what is the true role of design in the face of technological acceleration?
In Humanizing Technology, we explore how designers can be critical, creative, and conscious agents in building a more just and empathetic future, where technology is not an end in itself, but a tool at the service of the planet and those who inhabit it.
From the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence to the use of technologies applied in natural disasters, humanitarian efforts, and emergency contexts, this block opens a necessary conversation about how we can recover the more human side of innovation.
We want to imagine ways of designing technology that do not displace, isolate, or exclude, but rather accompany, care for, save, and connect. Because designing technology is also designing connections.
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
Design is organized, printed, programmed, woven, and shared.
This block showcases the work of designers, creatives, and collectives who use design as a tool for activism, collaboration, and resistance against systems that perpetuate inequality, racism, discrimination, and exclusion.
In this block, dissident graphics, open-source platforms, distributed production, and visual languages of protest become powerful forms of collective communication. These are not just visual objects, but processes that articulate new narratives, expand access to knowledge, and pave the way for other ways of being together, always maintaining an ethical stance toward the creation of digital tools.
In a context marked by hate speech and fragmentation, this block proposes viewing design as a deeply political practice: a way to connect, share knowledge, build community, legislate from freedom, and imagine possible futures that include us all.
