Waste Age at the Hong Kong Design Institute is an exhibition examining the role of design in tackling the critical problem of waste and its environmental consequences across the globe. Material Cultures acted as spatial designers for the exhibition. The design is a critique of our ‘take, make, waste’ economy, and design’s role in the problem. It explores how design can transform our waste into valuable resources, promote new ways of living with the earth rather than from it, and an ideal world where there is no such thing as waste. The proposal uses biobased, regenerative resources, which are carefully detailed to allow re-use at the conclusion of the exhibition.

Divided into three topics, this exhibition explores what lies beyond our current toxic waste infrastructures, exploring the environmental, social, and geopolitical forces at work. Visitors are immersed in the waste crisis before being shown the transformative potential of new design approaches that are redefining fashion, construction, food, electronics and packaging. Finally they get to explore the new materials that will help shape a cleaner future. Waste Age not only seeks to imagine alternative futures, but aims to empower the visitor to be part of the solution. 

Photography by Virgile Bertrand

Divided into three topics, this exhibition explores what lies beyond our current toxic waste infrastructures, exploring the environmental, social, and geopolitical forces at work. Visitors are immersed in the waste crisis before being shown the transformative potential of new design approaches that are redefining fashion, construction, food, electronics and packaging. Finally they get to explore the new materials that will help shape a cleaner future. Waste Age not only seeks to imagine alternative futures, but aims to empower the visitor to be part of the solution.