Day 1 - OUTER FORCES | Scarcity and Power: geopolitics of extraction

Behind every smartphone and electric vehicle lie hidden worlds of dwindling resources: contested mines, lithium deserts, and tonnes of e-waste discarded yearly. Will scarcity always fuel conflict and inequality or can design transcend it?

Speakers include designer Mále Uribe Forés, who has curated the Chile pavilion at the London Design Biennale and has researched mining industries in the Atacama Desert; artist Shiraz Bayjoo, who often explores the intersection of colonial extraction and ecological erasure in the Indian Ocean; Bridget Storrie of the Institute of Global Prosperity at UCL, whose work is about the relationship between natural resources, conflict and peace; and Shereen Doummar co-founder of Collective for Architecture Lebanon, which has curated the Lebanese pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The talk will be chaired by Dalia Gebrial, Lecturer in Geography and Social Justice at King’s College.