After the hearing in September, the IFG Advisory Board decides if, and to what extent, projects will receive a promotion under the “Designing politics – The politics of design” program.
Each spring, the new promotion phase starts with the invitation to architects, designers, urban planners and artists to meet the challenge of the designers’ social, cultural and political responsibility with their projects. Since the start of this program in 2006, more than 150 designers from 25 nations have applied for a grant. Following a process of careful consideration, the IFG Advisory Committee selects only a few of the submitted projects to a hearing in the buildings of the former hfg ulm. The designers invited to this hearing will be questioned by the Advisory Board as well as other invited experts. At the hearing, the candidates must show that their projects go beyond the superficial design idea and are not solely object or result-oriented. They are to experience and comprehend design as a process, in the best Ulm tradition.
The verdict of the internationally renowned IFG advisory board is based on several criteria: Is the project in question likely to influence reality decisively? Does it have a political dimension, and was the candidate capable of reflecting the significance that design has on politics? The IFG advisory committee evaluates whether, and to what degree, the project takes a critical look at the tension between politics and design. Moreover, has the candidate presented an extraordinary contribution that could not have been achieved by other disciplines.
After the hearing in 2006/2007, the IFG promotion program, financed through the HfG Ulm foundation, dispensed the grant of 50.000 Euros to projects from Jerusalem (Master Peace Game), from Johannesburg (The Kwa Thema Project) and from New York (Uncounted Counts). In 2007/2008, the grant is co-financing design-projects from Rotterdam (KlimaMaschine) and South Africa (Social Housing South Africa).
