The show was installed at the Averill and Bernard Leviton A+D Gallery, part of the Columbia College in Chicago, US, in 2009.

The exhibition included works by Siri Brekke, Edward Burtynsky, Dante Busquets, goldiechiari, Máximo González, Aylin Kayser and Cristian Metzner, Jason Middlebrook, MINETM, Paolo Pennuti, Diego Pérez, Ricochet Studio, Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray, Ariel Rojo, Vitamin, Uli Westphal, Craig Zucker.

This exhibition is about sustainability. It is not about green design, ecology or environmentalism. It’s about humanity and its incapability to sustain its habits and culture for future generations. To be precise, it is about the inability to foresee the long-term consequences of industrial development.

The works in Criteria thrust the visitor outside of his/her comfort zone, outlining the main contradiction between the views portrayed in the exhibition and our preconceived notions of progress and wealth, which could be described as the illusion of constant growth. Criteria puts under scrutiny an aesthetic in art and design that unveils a common awareness on contemporary environmental and social conditions.
The similarity of themes and discourses among the artists reveal a historical condition more than a trend or a coincidence.

The artists and designers depict a clash between a world with finite resources and a production and consumption paradigm that relies on perennial abundance. In this way the exhibition puts forward the concept of sustainability as the main criterion to evaluate future development and current lifestyles.