Risk Centre Lausanne (2016)

Mixed Media Installation

Developed from the existing body of knowledge and techniques that were incorporated in Risk Centre (2013), Risk Centre Lausanne further examined the premise that our relationship to risk-taking has become a powerful factor that influences decision making on many levels. The form of the perceived risk ranging from financial to physical, civic to legislative, persona to digital. However, whatever shape it takes, risk becomes a force that stimulates design thinking and ultimately shapes our environments.

As users of spaces and objects, risk comes to us through different channels. Whether culturally endemic, institutionalised, casual or concealed, it begins not just to affect our physical space, but also our behaviours and interactions. We are instructed, encouraged, invited or nudged towards certain forms of behaviour, either for our own protection or for the protection of others. But where is the authority behind these messages coming from?

The content and display of Risk Centre Lausanne operates at the intersection of where cultural risk trends meet everyday users, exploring how design decisions play out these relationships. As a cloud of information, it looks at the language of design related to risk from the functional through to the more aestheticised and celebratory. Through creating a new spatial environment of heightened risk awareness it explores the notion of a scripted space that acts like a landscape of information, a lexicon of data and a library of risks and a litany of error.

Commissioned by the The Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, Lausanne for the exhibition Safe and Sound, 2016.

In collaboration with Inigo Minns.
Installation Graphics: Yun Yu