Introduction to Session II. Food, Culture and Systemic Design

The text introduces the second session of the conference, devoted to the relationship between design, food and ecological systems. It argues that contemporary design has progressively extended its field of action beyond the form of objects towards the organisation of relations, processes and decisions, as attested by systemic, strategic, service and policy design. Recalling the Platonic figure of the "royal art" and the double meaning of techne as both art and operative capacity, design is described as a hinge discipline with an intrinsically transdisciplinary vocation, one that produces new syntheses rather than merely juxtaposing existing knowledge. The session is presented as a space for critical dialogue rather than for the transmission of consolidated knowledge, in view of restoring to design a public function able to orient transformations.