Tender Interbeing: The Future of Design with Empathy

How might design, technology, and human connection shape the futures we wish to live in? Tender Interbeing invites visitors to explore new ways of thinking and feeling through design, where empathy is not an afterthought, but the foundation of innovation. The exhibition showcases fourteen student-led live projects from the Global Smart Lab at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, including six in collaboration with the Communication University of China, alongside selected research projects from WSA. These projects emerge from interdisciplinary partnerships spanning design, engineering, computer science, gaming, psychology, health sciences, film, theatre, and cultural heritage. Together, they demonstrate how collaboration can tackle urgent social and technological challenges while opening new spaces for inclusivity. The projects on display range from bioengineered intelligent plant systems and multi-sensory care environments to immersive VR journeys that reimagine cultural identity, grief, and the idea of a “good death.” As part of a collective spatial narrative, they expand design beyond functionality and aesthetics, positioning inclusiveness as a guiding principle. Whether supporting older adults, disabled people, or communities often marginalised in mainstream narratives, these works ask: whom does design serve, and how might it care? Tender Interbeing also highlights how disciplines intersect, creating a symbiotic dialogue between art and science, engineering and imagination, computation and storytelling, research and lived experience. Researchers and students alike draw on speculative practices, design methodologies, and cross-cultural collaboration to create prototypes that are both grounded in the present and oriented toward possible futures. Through themes of empathy, inclusivity, and humanity, the exhibition positions design as a responsive and evolving practice. These projects do not aim to replace human interaction but to deepen it, opening new spaces where technology can listen, adapt, and nurture. In doing so, they imagine design not just as a tool for problem-solving, but as a practice of care, belonging, and remembrance. Part of the London Design Festival 2025, presented at White City Warehouse, Tender Interbeing reveals how creativity and research together can imagine futures where technology unites rather than divides, fostering more inclusive, sustainable, and compassionate worlds.