It was a great idea from the start. In an environment where design competitions take place every month, usually grabbing attention only within the comfort of the professional design community, an ambitious group of Danes set out to do something radically different. Their dream: to launch an awards programme with global impact, like the Nobel Prize or the Cannes Film Festival.

David Felice interviews visual artist Kigge Hvid, director and spokesperson of INDEX...

Who is Kigge Hvid, the visual artist…?

Well, it turned out I am more of an organiser than a visual artist. I was better at organising major exhibitions and events, so that is only a hobby now…

INDEX: is a global, non-profit, network organisation, originally intended as a project to highlight Denmark’s position as a hot spot for design. It now seems to have much further reaching goals. You refer to the new meaning of globalisation in today’s world, to the need of a creative economy and a knowledge-based economy. You also make references to social responsibility, to networking as fundamental pillars in a design-oriented future…

The original intention was to create a global event, like the Oscars. This was the task I was given – to create the biggest design awards in the world. We then spent six months traveling around the world… Europe, Asia, North America, asking people, if we were to organise such an event, what should its main focus be? Without this approach, our view would have been limited. We sort of engaged in conversation with hundreds of people, from CEOs, to artists, to the media. What emerged was that, if we wanted to have this big event for design, we would have to focus on human values, on what design can do for people, on new design thinking and design innovation. So, actually, it is the many people we spoke to who came up with the idea, we just listened.

There appears to be some contradiction. INDEX:, very much like Cameron Sinclair’s Architecture For Humanity, featured in M.E.’s April issue, speaks of design and clear thinking, care, universality, social responsibility... Both have rooted their success, popularity and visibility on the launching of rich competitions and awards…

And we are not the only ones – there is a new wave, a new world order, including the work of the World Economic Forum, for example. We have a common theme, and that is to improve the current state of the world. We have the same objectives. There is general consensus that the world now has the means, the technology, the knowledge, the economy to do things in a better way. That is what we do.

Tell us about how INDEX: works. You pride yourselves with an unorthodox organisational structure, a series of lounges. Who is your knowledge team?

The type of structure evolved very early on. Again, the idea was that if we wanted this big event, it could not be run only by people in Copenhagen. We had to provide access to people around the world, to attract knowledge, to be very inclusive. That is why we call them lounges, informal places where people come together to think. We are constantly closing and opening new ones as the need arises, depending on the task that has been assigned. The professional design institutions around the world nominate people to join us depending on the nature of the work required; we have the schools working for us, leaders in various fields participating in the summit and meetings we organise, and so on. The idea of creating this network structure, operated from Copenhagen, is that we have lounges from all over the world, every day. It is primarily a question of creating a contemporary organisational structure that enables us to access the people we need and the knowledge we need, to succeed with INDEX:.

You are crossing traditional borders, in bridging design with business intentions, you also refer to design and cutting-edge thinking… How do you engage with businesses?

Yes, and we can influence the way businesses work. The basic idea, of working with businesses, is that you cannot improve the world if there is no economy, you can help for a month or for a year, but you cannot make change permanent. We work with businesses as sponsors and they participate by contributing knowledge. They also give money, of course, and we give them back more knowledge and network.

Back to the global issues which you often address… You speak out against price-cutting as a prime cause of reduced innovation. You also say that different countries should avoid copying each other. INDEX: is also becoming increasingly political…

We work closely with governments and policy makers. That comment was about Denmark, but it is valid for every country. If you do what everybody else does, you will not survive in the knowledge society. We believe that what you have to build on is the consensus and the uniqueness of your company or the country you live in. Right now there is a global competition for design leadership between countries like Finland, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States. A lot of money is being invested in this. We had recommended to the Danish Government, in launching INDEX:, to focus on what Denmark is known for, design but also of course the welfare state and our democratic values. This is what makes Denmark special, a more human way of thinking, a planned society.

But, is this mainly a European thing? How do you bring in other, say, second world countries? How do these products reach the third world?

Last year we had a winner from South Africa, we had a winner from Latin America, a huge network of craftsmen. Of course, it is a dilemma and indeed challenging, that design thinking is more developed in the first world, in Europe, but also in Asia, right now. So what we do is tour the world, get to know the people, introduce them to our events – even including them in our juries to select winners of our awards. In this way we engage people who live in the second and third worlds, and by involving them in the selection process, we get a direct contribution to, and inclusion and expansion of the network. It is true that we receive most nominations from Denmark and the United States, but we also receive nominations from Morocco, Chile, and, when we do a specific project, we get participants from Hong Kong, Qatar, and we constantly try to involve participants from across the whole world…

INDEX: calls for design to improve life, design as a quality of life issue…

What we think is that design has acquired a specific space at the centre of your life. At the moment we are working with a Foundation here in Denmark, providing welfare services, and we are observing old people’s homes, and talking to the elderly, and realising that, wherever you are in the world, when you get to pension age, what you do is that you develop a secondary occupation, and this happens because if you are not ‘in engagement’ you simply die. We are proposing changes to the welfare services that will promote and facilitate the development of the engagement potential of this sector of the population and in its daily working life. We will live longer and work longer, because it will be what we want to do.

In addressing the contemporary needs of the users of design products, do you think the contribution of the general public is giving new meaning to design issues, both in terms of new relevance and importance?

Design needs the energy and engagement of all people involved. At INDEX:, we are taking the nominated design projects out of the exhibition halls and into the public squares of Copenhagen. And we charge no entrance fees. This meant that last year we had 170,000 visitors in four weeks. This, when the local design centre had 80,000 visitors in one year. We try and make whatever we do very accessible to people. Real people. Not only for professionals. To help understand how design can contribute to real improvement in our lifestyles.

Your website says that INDEX: doesn’t believe in simplifications, that there is no single strategy…

Did we say that?

Yes. Websites can be dangerous places to leave things in…

It is about the combined power of many different ways of thinking. Instead of staying in sectors of having architects and designers working separately, you need to involve the users, the people with the money, the policy makers. In a very basic way we need the people. Limiting solution-seeking to experts will not do the job anymore.

Where is INDEX: going with this year’s programme? You mention lead users, strategic design, anthropology, mass customisation, business model design, service design… You seem to have moved on, well beyond INDEX:’s original concept… What is your new mission?

One of our prime objectives is to continue to extend the geographical boundaries of what we do and who we are networked with. This will increase the value of thinking within the network.
All big events have the same challenge, to shift from talking to doing. We work from a position where we can see a lot of new things being done and a lot of networks being created. We need to empower both the public and private sectors to begin to cause real change in the quality of our lives.