transform.NRW
Platform for sustainable transformation launches
Click on the poster: Larger version // Graphic design: transform.nrw project team
The platform brings together stakeholders from the worlds of art, culture, design and academia with partners from business, politics and society. At its heart lies the conviction that sustainable change requires new forms of collaboration. Art, culture and design can shed light on existing structures, ways of life and modes of production, challenge them and provide impetus for new, more sustainable models.
“Art, culture and design can make social structures visible and highlight new perspectives. This is precisely where transform.NRW comes in: We want to bring together knowledge and experience from a wide variety of fields and harness them to shape a sustainable future,” says Prof. Dr Martina Fineder-Hochmayr, Head of the Chair of Design Theory and Design Research at the university of Wuppertal and co-project leader of transform.NRW.
Sharing knowledge, developing ideas, driving change
At the heart of the new platform is a digital hub – a central point of contact and hub for inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration. The examples of good practice illustrate different ways in which knowledge of sustainability and transformation can be translated into concrete projects. Methods and toolkits complement the collection and are designed to support users in addressing their own questions and developing new ideas. These include, for example, the ‘Map/ing Sustainability’ method, which uses a transdisciplinary approach to analyse and visualise impact in relation to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – through the exchange of knowledge between the disciplines involved.
Digital collection becomes a walk-through experience
From 16 September 2026, visitors to the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn will be able to experience how the digital platform works and the diversity of projects behind it. There, transform.NRW will present the walk-through media installation ‘Touch/ing Transformation – Optimistic Perspectives from Art, Design and Science’. It will be on display until 7 January 2027 in the Bundeskunsthalle’s media art space and translates the digital collection into a spatial, interactive context.
The installation allows visitors to experience sustainability as an ongoing process of social change. At its heart is an interactive media archive through which visitors can independently discover best-practice projects from the fields of art, design and science. Around 50 projects can be explored via videos, interviews, photographs and texts on three large-scale touch walls.
The themes are as diverse as the projects themselves: What does climate change sound like? What can we learn about collaboration from fungi? How can colonial history be brought to life through sewing? Among other things, the projects on display develop alternative visions of the future, bring material cycles to life, work on systemic innovations or seek solutions to specific everyday problems.
Further information on the exhibition is available on the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn website. Admission is free.
About the project
transform.NRW has been running since May 2023 and is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia until April 2027. The collaborative project is led by the Wuppertal Institute and the school of art and design at the university of Wuppertal, and is being implemented in collaboration with 16 partner organisations from North Rhine-Westphalia.
The development of the platform was supported by workshops, analogue design processes, networking amongst stakeholders and intensive feedback and testing cycles. Another important milestone was the transform.NRW symposium at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn in November 2025. There, representatives from the arts, culture, design, science, business, politics and society discussed the role of interdisciplinary collaboration in socio-ecological transformation.
With the launch of the platform, this network is now also accessible digitally. The project does not regard itself as a finished product: the knowledge base and the transform.NRW network are set to continue growing in the future. Interested parties are invited to get involved and contribute their own examples of good practice.
The transform.NRW project platform will be available from mid-September 2026 at www.transform.nrw.
