John thackara biography
- John Thackara (born 6 August 1951, Newcastle upon Tyne) is a.
- John Thackara is a writer, advisor and event producer.
- John Thackara (born 6 August 1951, Newcastle upon Tyne) is a British-born writer, advisor and public speaker.
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John Thackara is a writer, advisor and bioregional designer.
Today, he is a senior fellow at the Royal College of Art; adjunct professor at Tongji University in Shanghai; visiting professor at School of Visual Arts in New York, and at Pontio Innovation in Wales; and curator of the Social Food Forum.
His most recent book - How To Thrive In the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow's World Today - has just been published in China.
He curated the celebrated Doors of Perception conference for 20 years – first in Amsterdam, later across India – and was commissioner of the UK social innovation biennial Dott 07 and the French design biennial City Eco Lab.
Since 2011, Thackara has curated place-based xskool workshops in 20 countries on the theme: Pathways to sustainability: Urban-Rural Reconnection. He studied philosophy before working for ten years as a book publisher and magazine editor. He was the first director (1993—99) of the Netherlands Design Institute.
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Biography
John Thackara is a philosopher, writer and curator, working in the realms of social, ecological and relational design. He curated the celebrated »Doors of Perception« conference for 20 years, first in Amsterdam, later across India; he was commissioner of the UK social innovation biennial »Dott 07«, and the French design biennial »City Eco Lab«, and in 2019 curated the »Urban-Rural« expo in Shanghai. Since 2011, Thackara has curated workshops in 20 countries on the theme: »Pathways to Sustainability«. Being interested in what a sustainable future can be like, he has traveled the world looking for real-life examples of sustainable living, employing this knowledge in his lectures and writing. He is a senior fellow at the Royal College of Art, visiting professor at Tongji University in Shanghai, and curator of the Social Food Forum. His last book - »How To Thrive In the Next Economy: Designing Tomorrow's World Today« (2015) - has just been published in China.
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John Thackara on Designing for Life
His 2018 book, How to Thrive in the Next Economy, is a compelling survey of dozens of eclectic projects that are pointing the way forward. He has described the subjects of his journalism as the "soil restorers and river keepers; seed savers and de-pavers; care farmers and food system curators; fibershed stewards and money designers."
I feel a kinship with John's effort to elevate the people and projects that, despite a toxic and regressive political scene, are pioneering promising new pathways. Thackara calls such work as "designing for life," by which he means developing project designs that support embodied human beings rather than ideological agendas. It's also about supporting the more-than-human forms of life in the world and future generations.
In recent months, dismayed at corporate responses to the climate catastrophe, John has compiled a list of the many propaganda scams that corporations are funding to help them delude themselves and the public that meaningful actions are being taken. The term "sustainability" has become rather