Design and Democracy
Some of these entanglements are made to be invisible, while others are in plain sight, but at times hard to comprehend. In fact, the complexity of our governance systems obfuscates our agency in them. In the midst of our turbulent now, when the so-called “crisis of democracy” seems to be a permanent condition, design needs to reclaim its fundamental role in helping to make those entanglements both visible and tangible. This, in turn, can allow us to reclaim our role within democracy itself. The spectrum of democratic practices is wide and diverse, but for it to be “of the people, by the people, for the people,” democracy needs to be built and practiced by every one of us, every single day.
Vera Sacchetti (Lisbon, 1983) is a Basel-based design critic and curator. She specializes in contemporary design and architecture and serves in a variety of curatorial, research and editorial roles. Recently, she curated “Earthrise 25: Where to, from Here?” at the Circolo del Design in Turin (2025), and co-curated “Right here, right now: Bioregional ways and situated practices”, at the Covilhã Design Triennial (2025).
In 2023, Sacchetti co-founded Fazer, a new design magazine in Portugal; co-initiated the Design and Democracy platform (2020–), which maps the intersections and overlaps between design and democratic systems and practices; and served as program coordinator of the research initiative Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal (2020-2023), which supports transdisciplinary research on sustainable futures.
She has edited Driving the Human: Seven Prototypes for Eco-social Renewal (Mousse Publishing, 2023); The Atelier Luma Approach (LUMA Arles, 2021); and Design As Learning: A School of Schools Reader (Valiz, 2018).
Her writing has appeared in The Architectural Review, Metropolis, and Disegno, among others. Sacchetti is lecturer in Design Theory at HSLU Design Film Kunst and a tutor at Design Academy Eindhoven. In 2020, she joined the Federal Design Commission of Switzerland.
