Meet Graham. The only person designed to survive on our roads

24 November 2019

'Cars: Accelerating the Modern World' explores how the car as a driving force has accelerated the pace of change over the past century.

As we stand at a new turning point in mobility design, a new exhibition at the London Victoria & Albert Museum acts as a looking-back-to-look-forward – to understand our past blunders and achievements in order to better imagine how we want to move in the future.

The opening section - 'Going Fast' explores the role of the automobile in imagining a future world of liberated movement and as a symbol of technological progress. It looks at how the urge to go fast pushed not only the design of automobiles, but also shaped a visual culture and aesthetic that dominated the first half of the 20th century. This section ends by looking at the tension between two opposing forces – the desire for the thrill of speed and the imperative of safety.

Central to the exhibition is Graham - The only person designed to survive on our roads. Graham is from Victoria Australia - a TAC road safety project, highlighting how vulnerable the human body is to the forces involved in transport accidents . The TAC collaborated with leading trauma surgeon Christian Kenfield, crash investigator expert David Logan and world-renowned artist Patricia Piccinini, to produce Graham – a lifelike, interactive sculpture demonstrating human vulnerability.