Dezeen promotion: designers can engage with social and political problems that are sometimes too big for governments to tackle, says Richard van der Laken, founder of annual social design conference What Design Can Do (+ interview).
This week What Design Can Do will announce the five finalists in its first Refugee Challenge at its annual conference in Amsterdam, which started today and continues until 1 July.
"Our statement in this Refugee Challenge is that this is a problem, an issue, that is too big for politics and governments alone," Dutch graphic designer and conference founder Richard van der Laken told Dezeen.
"We as designers, or as civilians at large, should step up and try to see what we can add to the solution to this problem." Dezeen is media partner for the Refugee Challenge, which aims to find designs that can improve the lives of refugees living in urban areas and attracted more than 630 entries.
This week What Design Can Do will announce the five finalists in its first Refugee Challenge, which received more than 60 entries
With animosity towards refugees rising across Europe, What Design Can Do has been criticised by some commentators for approaching such a complex political issue as a design challenge.
But Van der Laken, 45, said that it was impossible to separate design from politics.

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