Endless Vital Activity

UNSAID – The conversations we’re not having | BYBORRE x Accept & ProceedListen to Borre Akkersdijk of BYBORRE and David Johnston of Accept & Proceed at Milan Design Week 2024, as they speak with design researcher and lecturer Delfina Fantini Van Ditmar. Delfina, David and Borre talk about alternative design futures, regeneration, systemic thinking and the importance of reconceptualising humans as part of nature.  ---Follow us with conversations being released via Endless Vital Activity, and our Instagram. Partner: Neutra

UNSAID — The conversations we’re not having | BYBORRE x Accept & ProceedListen to Borre Akkersdijk of BYBORRE and David Johnston of Accept & Proceed at Milan Design Week 2024, as they speak with Zowie Broach, Head of MA Fashion at RCA. Borre, David and Zowie discuss paradigm shifts in design, consumption, the future of education, the crossed lines between dopamine and desire, and more.---Follow us with conversations being released via Endless Vital Activity, and our Instagram. Partner: Neutra

UNSAID — The conversations we’re not having | BYBORRE x Accept & ProceedAt  Milan Design Week last year, the Accept & Proceed team was extremely inspired by BYBORRE’s ‘Elephant in the Room’ and how it unlocked necessary conversations about transparency and accountability.One year later, Borre Akkersdijk and David Johnston are back in Milan, joining forces.At Vanity Fair's Garden of Ideas, they will engage in wide-ranging conversations with radical thinkers, fashion designers, creators, architects, designers and makers about the problems we have been given to solve. Together, seeking new perspectives to reimagine our world.---Follow us with conversations being released via Endless Vital Activity, and our Instagram. Partner: Neutra

Multidisciplinary designer, floral artist and no-waste advocate Joost Bakker guides us through his mission to inspire us all to live a zero-waste life. Follow along on @endless_vital_activity / @acceptandproceeed

Clare Farrell and Brian Eno discuss their shared commitment to mobilising change in the face of climate emergency, under the banner of an emergent movement called HardArt. Follow along on @endless_vital_activity / @acceptandproceeed

In this episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston meets with Bethany Koby – mum, CEO, Social entrepreneur, designer, educator and art director.Bethany journeys through her trajectory, from her education to the inception of Fam Studio and Tech Will Save Us.  Johnston and Koby interrogate how technology can be an expressive medium, as opposed to just a tool, and also discuss the challenges & opportunities of parenting in the digital age.Follow along on @endless_vital_activity / @acceptandproceeed

In this episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston meets with Adrian Lahoud - architect, urban designer, researcher and dean of the School of Architecture at London's Royal College of Arts. Johnston and Lahoud discuss Second Sea, why we need to stimulate debate around reparations, and the importance of reciprocity. Follow along on @endless_vital_activity / @acceptandproceeed

In this episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston welcomes a radically new perspective to the season with architect Michael Pawlyn. Listen to the conversation on what lies between our built environment and our natural environment: biomimicry.Follow along on @endless_vital_activity / @acceptandproceeed

In this episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston speaks with none other than whom many consider as one of the great philosophers and writers of our time: Charles Eisenstein. In this special conversation, join David and Charles for an enlightening mind journey on the topic of Rethinking Meta-Systems.Follow along on @endless_vital_activity / @acceptandproceeed

Our first guest kicking off this season is Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, an Olympic champion, three-times world champion heptathlete and the founder of Jennis, a fitness app synced to its user’s unique hormonal cycle. This season’s theme is Rethinking Systems, and with Jessica, we are Rethinking Women’s Health. Follow along on @endless_vital_activity / @acceptandproceeed

“Commercialism is not the antithesis of culture; it can be part of it, but a well-rounded culture does not keep culture and commerce in antithesis”  In this episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston speaks with Paola Antonelli, senior curator of the Department of Architecture & Design and Director of R&D at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. David and Paola explore her philosophy of design for the people, why she compares her role as a curator to that of a movie director as oppose to a storyteller, plus Paola lifts the lid on the production of her speaker series, Salon, uncovering the work that goes into setting the theme of each event. 

“The idea that you could use the law to help other people fight for bigger radical change was the only thing I ever wanted to do” In this episode, David Johnston sits down with Ravi Naik, co-founder for the UK’s first data right agency A.W.O and a leading solicitor in the field of data protection and protecting human rights in a digital age, working on agenda setting cases against Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and Google. Together the two discuss how the intersection between human rights and technology is disrupting the discipline of law as we know it, why meeting societies rapidly changing needs requires a multifaceted approach to law, plus Ravi’s involvement in the prosecution of Cambridge Analytica - the case that changed the course of history for data rights and protection. 

“The future is a verb, not a noun. It's not something that we passively stumble into, it's something we all actively shape and define”In this episode, David Johnston sits down with director and architect Liam Young, co-founder of the Urban Futures think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today and the nomadic research studio Unknown Fields.The pair discuss how ‘humanness’ in the future will exist in tech blind spots, the importance of visual language to best detail a story, and the power of using fiction as an emotional Trojan horse to travel through potential futures in order to build the correct infrastructure today.

“We need a new mythology of what technology is. We need nature-based technologies that will lead us towards a new form for not being saviours of the earth, but living with Earth symbiotically” In this second episode of series 2, creative studio Accept & Proceed's founder David Johnston meets with Julia Watson, an Australian designer of urban, indigenous, and spiritual landscapes and author of Lo-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism. Johnston and Watson discuss why we need to redefine the meaning of technological innovation, the importance of diversity in building resilient environments and why nature-based technologies can help us live symbiotically with nature.

"I think at the centre of it, is a new recognition of who we are as human beings."In the first episode of series 2, creative studio Accept & Proceed’s founder David Johnston meets with Indy Johar, architect and co-founder of Dark Matter Laboratories.The duo discuss Sikhism, running Dark Matter Labs, the values and rationale behind running a business in an untraditional way and reconfiguring the ‘normal’ structures that exist within a company.

“What does it look like on the other side of this crisis? Does this have to be a story of depravity - or can it be an opportunity to create [a better future]?” In the latest episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston speaks with Damon Gameau, actor and filmmaker behind ‘That Sugar Film’ and his most recent release ‘2040’. David and Damon discuss why the film industry is getting it wrong when it comes to climate change, the importance of providing children with a utopian vision of the future, and how having a fundamental understanding of human psychology can create a better future for both people and the planet. 

“A crisis such as the one that we're in right now has given brands a bit of a wakeup call to make products that are about survival and not necessarily consumption in the same way.”In this episode, David Johnston meets with Seetal Solanki, founder of materials research design studio Ma-tt-er and author of ‘Why Materials Matter’.Seetal discusses the importance of broadening the definition of ‘materials’, brands using the pandemic to pivot and how you can challenge yourself to change your perspective within a capitalist society.

“[In the future] I believe that the buildings will dream, the buildings will remember.”In the latest episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston speaks with Refik Anadol, media artist, director and visiting researcher at UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts.Johnston and Anadol discuss the intersection between the spiritual, virtual and physical realms, data as an art form and how Refik challenges the conventions of art with his public space data sculptures.

“Uncertainty is freedom.”In this episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston meets with Clare Farrell, co-founder of global environmental movement Extinction Rebellion.Johnson and Farrell discuss the broken system our current democracy upholds, the parallels between COVID-19 and global warming, and how to inspire people into radical action.

“Business has some serious thinking to do. We're in danger of losing our way. In amongst a crisis and chaos is a really good time to just go ‘are we doing this right?’”In the latest episode of Endless Vital Activity, David Johnston speaks with David Hieatt, the co-founder of Hiut Denim Co and The DO Lectures; the self-funded talk series that aims to create a safe space to ask better questions about the world we live in.Johnston and Hieatt discuss the pitfalls of ‘selling out’, the need for purpose-led businesses and the power of anonymity when asking what needs to change in the world.