Hungarian design fiction – From genetically engineered bees to the Kunság Kiwinery
Date: 2022.02.08
What is possible and what is impossible? How can design play a role in shaping the future? How can individual objects impact the world and influence our imagination? In recent years, design fiction programmes started to pop up also in Hungarian design education. MOME’s latest Design Fiction course focused on climate change and increasingly extreme ecological transformation.
The concepts were directed at making areas in Hungary affected by global warming more liveable. The participants conducted fictive experiments for the genetic engineering of beneficial invasive species, and outlined plans for honeypot ant farms, wearable energy sources and alternative funeral homes designed to help adapt to our increasingly rapidly changing world.
Design fiction enables the development of new visions that are halfway between facts and fiction. By envisaging creative and innovative products and services it puts present day issues in a new perspectives, reinterpreting the seemingly ordinary.
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Established last year for ecological and educational purposes, the MOME Apiary has welcomed two new colonies: on 30 April, during Bee Day, the Mézengúz and Pempő families were added to the Tót and Mézga families, collectively benefitting the local ecosystem. The event was both a community celebration and a popular science educational experience, with participants able to harvest fresh fruit blossom honey.