Founded in 1993, Worldstudio Foundation is a not-for-profit organization whose primary goals are to stimulate, coalesce and channel social activism in the design and fine arts industries; to encourage discussion of the fields’ ethical assumptions; to promote professional practices sensitive to ecological and humane issues; and to expand the global consciousness of individual artists, architects, designers, and the businesses they serve.

Recognizing the interdisciplinary nature of today’s creative milieu, Worldstudio Foundation involves a wide range of the visual disciplines, including: advertising, architecture, exhibition/display design, film/video, fine art, furniture design, graphic design, illustration, industrial/product design, interior design, landscape design, new media, photography, set/stage design, textile/surface design, and urban planning.

Worldstudio Foundation is premised on the idea that, as the primary shapers of our material and visual world, artists, architects and designers occupy an informed and powerful position that demands a proactive stance on issues of environmental responsibility and sustainability, humane and progressive workplaces, and the formation of an expansive, inclusive, and diverse community. This means that we need not only to examine the context and impact of our own work, but also to initiate efforts to collaborate with other individuals, organizations, and firms toward progressive social, community and environmental change.

While there exists a general inclination within the larger design/arts industry as well as among individual creators to increase the industry’s engagement in addressing social concerns – in particular, the disturbing lack of people of color in the profession and the ecologically insensitive patterns of production – there has not, as yet, been a concise nucleus of discussion and application through which action can be taken. Worldstudio Foundation exists to fill this gap in a manner that remains as flexible, immediate, and far-reaching as need demands.