The other week I saw a great exhibit on Cuban art and found myself lingering in the room full of protest posters from the late 60s/early 70s. That room of revolution and the images from Seoul’s recent massive protests have me thinking about the need to redesign activism in America.

The 90s didn’t give my generation very much to get upset about, but I spent my younger years feeling the absence of a particular collaborative participation. I imagined the past, where a collective voice could mean anything from sitting around the turntable listening to Bob Dylan albums to gathering around the State House to make opinions heard. Though these images have an idealized air, I do continue to believe that the outlets that served my parents – and our country – in the last century are no longer effective.

And yet, the venues that seem to have replaced them in communal dialogue lack a certain visibility – or group effervescence. That picture of Seoul is powerful, seeing tens of thousands of people physically joined in protest. The blogosphere doesn’t so much impress that upon me; perhaps it’s too nuanced for such mass participation and in some ways, I can see how the dialogue has evolved beyond this. But aren’t there times when a common voice would be valued? Aren’t there times when you wish there were a way to have one? I won’t politicize the idea: I am sure you can come up with your own example.

So where’s design in all this? In my mind, it’s the catalyst. Design is about communication and activism is about communication. The public voice in 2008 is largely digital or economic, while politics remain at once quaintly physical and disastrously directed. When there is debate over even how votes are counted, there seems a need for the design of a new way for public sentiment to find an impactful voice.

There are some people who protest through design. Natalie Jeremijenko is one. Take her Feral Robotic Dogs: toy dog robots hacked to sense hazardous waste and to make technical data visceral, alive. Rather than numbers on a spread sheet, environmental toxicity is communicated through a wag of a tail These goofy looking dog toys are quite effective in making news at, for example, Bronx brownfields. Often her work is about transparency of information – making the invisible visible. That’s part of what protest is, isn’t it?

There are certainly others working in a similar vein, using the physical to instigate awareness or change – from the work of Architecture for Humanity to the Prius. Maybe my desire for the design of a new form of protest is not fully baked; maybe design is the new activism. Maybe it could be more so.