Wednesday, 17 July 2019, 17:00,
The Faculty for Design and Art wants to be more visible and sharpen its profile. Therefore, on 3 June several teachers and some students met to discuss whether to invest to be present at the Milano Design Week. The outcome of the lively discussion was that it’s really about the ideas on how the intervene at the Design Week or maybe somewhere else? Or not all. We agreed that the interested generate ideas individually or on groups, which will be discussed in the upcoming meeting.
How to intervene at the Milan Design Week or at other events in ways that create visibility for the Faculty – with its BA in Design & Art and its MA in Eco-Social Design, and eventually also with the research work done at the Faculty? Which are the ideas that matter for our Faculty in the world of today and its future?
Feel free to write your ideas below as a comment, so that others can build up on it. It’s not a contest, but a co-creative process.
3 ideas/approaches:
A/ for the Milano Design Week (and/or similar spectacles)
I suggest designing Experience and Information Spaces, which make hot/hidden issues tangible and experienceable. Such a space has to be developed by a team, which could be a students project team or a mixed team of teachers/researchers and students. Some exemplary briefings for such a team:
Briefing 1:
Extraction–Production–Consumption–Waste is still the usual business. We are far away from a circular economy. The Milano Design Week (and similar events) are a “good” example for this. Show the amount of waste produced during the design week. Make it tangible and experienceable for the visitors of the event (and visible in the media).
Briefing 2:
Acceleration is seen as a dominant trend in our type of societies (see Hartmut Rosa) going along with the dogma of growth leading to overproduction, hyperconsumption, burn out and other collateral damages. The Milano Design Week (and similar events) are at the forefront of this trend. Create a space, which counterbalances this by offering opportunities to slow down, to breathe calmly, to enjoy the silence, to contemplate, to have quiet conversations, to … (this briefing is inspired by a similar briefing developed at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle)
Briefing 3:
…?
B/ Design & Art Festival Bolzano–Bozen
Instead of investing in a successful presence at the Milano Design Week (and/or similar spectacles) the Faculty could put all efforts in an annual event in Bolzano–Bozen. This event could include an exhibition, workshops, talks, eating and drinking, sun and air and party. It would represent the whole Faculty with its BA in Design & Art and its MA in Eco-Social Design, and also with the research work done at the Faculty. It will be promoted professionally and repeated every year (or biennially). Each time a team of teachers/researcher and students will be responsible to curate and organize the festival together with a responsible person from the secretariat, from unibz event management and from the facility management. The team should include people for all study courses.
As if this a lot of work (not only for the team), it could be considered to cut down the work on smaller events throughout the year.
C/ Outside Art & Design
Good design needs good partners. Relevant art needs people outside the art world. Let’s go where people and partners are. Outside the worlds of art and design. This could be very diverse events such as the Festival dell’Economia or the OltrEconomia Festival (Trento), the Bits & Bäume Conference (Berlin), the Festival del Bene Comune, … you name it. We could contribute as artists, designers and researchers.