Around Autofiction

Detroit, Geelong, Graz, Kortrijk, Puebla, Saint-Étienne and Torino are all members of the UNESCO Creative Cities of Design Network and referents in the field of the automotive industry. They have come together to share their experiences and their visions of tomorrow’s mobility.

unesco.org/creative-cities

While individuals’ desire for mobility keeps on growing (the number of cars on earth passed the 1.2 billion mark in 2020), profound aspirations are springing up all over the place to change the way we consume, our relationship with our resources and our political and social standpoints. That being the case, how can we reconcile a deeply rooted culture of mobility with our new existential aspirations? How has the car become the object that stands for our desires and our difficulty in taking another path? How are designers taking this situation on board? We are faced with different possible scenarios, different bifurcations. The automobile is questioned, it’s no more a personal property! which bifurcation to take?

Around Autofiction1 is a traveling exhibition to be enriched through workshops with partner cities composed of an overview of mobility projects carried out in Unesco Creative Cities of Design. These inspiring projects draw a portrait of the research carried out by designers and companies through these Unesco Creative Cities of Design and outlines the transversality of the issues raised by the question of the mobility of the future.

This overview follows the rhythm of a changing sector and reveals the internationality of the question of mobility. It is a social, political, and ecological issue that also concerns territories and their singularities. This panorama is accompanied by objects and videos to support the work of designers, companies, researchers, students and users on the mobility of tomorrow.

The Cité du design, surrounded by designers has created an interactive and playful application, Mister D, to involve citizens in this program, thus opening up the debate to all, and connecting mobility actors with the plurality of their users.