Turn Signals — Design is not a Dashboard is a series of animated data visualizations developed for the exhibition of the same name, presented in Timișoara in 2023. The exhibition investigated the role of design within a city shaped by manufacturing, technical expertise, and post-industrial transformation. It responded to a commissioned report—Economy in Timișoara: Territorial Distribution of the Economy in the Timișoara Metropolitan Area—which analyzed the spatial and economic dynamics of the region.

The visualizations addressed five thematic clusters derived from the report: automotive industry, import and export, Industrialisation and Technological Level, Outsourcing and IT, and workers. These were used as interpretive frameworks to rearticulate statistical findings and system-based insights through animated formats. The goal was not to simplify the data but to reframe it within a broader cultural and technological narrative, exploring the hidden asymmetries of labor, production, and infrastructure embedded in the city’s manufacturing ecosystem.

The animations were developed as part of a wider collaboration between designers, local researchers, and practitioners. Each piece operated at the intersection of different systems—engineering, digital culture, supply chains, and policy—translating static metrics into visual languages that reflect their embedded complexities.

Rather than presenting data as objective or neutral, the work emphasized the layered and constructed nature of economic representation. The animations formed a speculative reading of Timișoara’s industrial fabric, positioning design as a method for re-narrating the city’s future beyond the constraints of existing manufacturing paradigms.