Interstitial maps for design pedagogy: connective materialities in the making
Cultural spaces: A point of view from Canberra, Australia
Educating awareness of Indian Lifestyle impact over Craft Traditions
Ubuntu co-creation process: Indigenising the design process
Cultured Spaces: from Travel to Stasis
Cross-Culturality, Multidisciplinarity and Globalisation in Design Education
Ko Wai Ko Au, Ko Au Ko Wai – I Am Water, Water Is Me
Eau! Wasser! Acqua! Water! Agua!
Interstitial maps for design pedagogy:
connective materialities in the making
Leyla Belkaïd Neri
Design education and design research certainly contribute to the rethinking of the political conditions of the present. It is therefore worth trying to question studio-based pedagogy as a tool to delineate the investigative territories of design through new projections of “otherness”. The paper will address the contents and outcomes of three pedagogical experiences based on the exploration of multiple cultural sites, historical narratives and searches for alterity. The three case studies draw upon real and virtual journeys between different locations, from Delhi to Oran, New York or Aleppo. They are analyzed as pedagogical scenarios of cultural articulation. I will focus on projects that derived from my research work as an anthropologist, but have been driven by the objective of introducing students to fashion design practices. In each case, the cultural hybridity of a postcolonial population has been taken as the paradigmatic place of departure of the studio project. How do European students welcome and integrate the idea of designing for and together with postcolonial people in emerging nations situated in other continents, instead of only taking inspiration from their artistic and craft traditions? How do they negotiate the antagonist feelings they experience when confronted to the history, the body and the sensoriality of the “Other”? What characterizes the minority voices of design students from non-industrialized countries who produce contemporary objects and aesthetics in the globalised environment of a Western school of design? How can fieldwork and anthropological research nurture design education today and how does the material culture perspective contribute to this mutual enhancement? In the projects that will be examined in this paper, the idea of liminal design is emphasized to move the positions of enunciation of creative students with the purpose of encouraging them to go beyond the geopolitical divisions of North and South, West and East. This attempt aims at emancipating design students from binary cultural polarities. The methods I have experimented envisage design as a dynamic site for the production of cultural difference, that is as the nexus of plural materialities at the crossroads of entangled times, historicities and geographies. Design teaching is therefore redefined as a social agent that allows for innovative cultural incursions and for the expression of new identities in the process of being formed. My communication deals with the construction of experimental educational approaches to design that broaden the margins of hybridity in the new transnational spaces of cultural circulation.
Cultural spaces: A point of view from Canberra, Australia
Gilbert Riedelbauch (Canberra, Australia)
In April 2016 six students and two leaders of the Cultural Spaces project visited Canberra to share and contribute to an educational experience in Art & Design. This presentation reflects on the impact this intercultural exchange had when Cultural Spaces joined the Points of View course at the School of Art, Australian National University.
Students from both hemispheres brought a highly diverse mix of cultural backgrounds, life experiences and creative practices to this project and found themselves exposed to what is arguably the most westernised area of modern Australia – Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra. This familiarity required a fine-tuned approach to assess expectations and to identify cultural differences. Feedback from all participants will serve to see a more ‘nuanced diversity’ of the cultural spaces that opened through out this project.
In this presentation I will discuss how the Cultural Spaces project advanced an intercultural exchange during this intensive educational setting. It will illustrate the limitations and benefits of curriculum structure and communication methods.
The outcomes of this exchange have had an impact on all participants, students and staff alike, and their personal and professional points of view. Also my teaching practice and the further development of Points of View as a course for our Masters by Coursework program has been challenged through this experience.
Educating awareness of Indian Lifestyle
impact over Craft Traditions
Himadri Hiren Ghosh (Banasthali, India)
I will commence with the little introduction of India and its diversity and the role of craft tradition.
As examples, I would explain few craft traditions, how they originated and their impact in the lifestyle, as well as the lifestyle impact on the craft.
As the climatic conditions and social life of urban or rural sectors affect the lifestyle and thus also the profession, we shall explore examples to convey the salient points to the audience.
As far as educating awareness is concerned, India has always fought the intruders to keep their traditions alive. However, all external impacts ultimately result in moderating the existing parameters and thus the external influences color the existing culture to bring forth a new culture.
Today, too, India is fighting in two cultural fronts. Internally because of ease of communication, the diversity and differences of different cultures of India are getting mixed up. On the other hand, Indian public in both urban and rural sectors imitate westerns outlook and culture. As they feel that they will be called modern. This mentality has created a dual identity for almost everyone. But what is required in this world of globalisation is to have one’s own identity. Cultural traditions of any country are the backbone for that country’s identity.
With this objective in mind, in Banasthali a course of Cultural Anthropology was evolved where credit of 6 hours per week (i.e., totally 90 hrs/week) is allowed. This is commenced as an experiment to Interior Design Students in their 3rd semester.
Ubuntu co-creation process:
Indigenising the design process
Richie Moalosi (Gaborone, Botswana)
The purpose of this study was to examine the decolonisation of design education praxeology, that is, the practices and processes of design. Despite attempts of developing culturally responsive design practices, African voices have not succeeded in indigenising design education. As part of decolonising the design education in Africa, it is time to take the creative risk of valuing imagination, the poetic, the symbolic, the aesthetic or the spiritual as factors of the society’s innovation, and social progress. Furthermore, most successful creative people have all looked at the traditions, history and culture and then built on them. However, culture is still considered on the fringe of educational, economic and societal development in new emerging economies such as Botswana. Indigenous knowledge should be seen as an important resource for creativity and innovation. Such a resource should be given greater prominence in the broader policies on the knowledge economy, innovation and social cohesion. Curriculum review and development should be developed to create new educational programmes which stimulate creativity and preserve cultural heritage.
When design education is infused with indigenous knowledge, it becomes a preserving agent of the society’s norms and conventions, and offers a new approach to tackling the society’s social problems for which current approaches are deemed inadequate. This approach can assist to deliver new and more sustainable ways of living and build on cultural authenticity. In order to decolonise the design education in Botswana, this study has adopted the postcolonial theory to critique the oppressive cultural practices brought by colonisation.
This study discusses the decolonisation of design education from a postcolonial theory perspective by integrating the philosophy of ‘Ubuntu’ with the concepts of indigenous knowledge and the co-creation process. The authors have proposed the Ubuntu co-creation process as a decolonised design process. This process has been successfully applied to innovative products from an African perspective in the three case studies reviewed in the study to advance local thought and content. Such an approach can build a new creative cultural foundation for design education.
Keywords: case study, culture, co-creation process, decolonisation, Ubuntu, indiginising.
Cultured Spaces: from Travel to Stasis
Jilly Traganou
<Cultured: (of tissue cells, bacteria, etc.) grown or made under controlled conditions; grown or propagated in an artificial medium>
This talk will provide reflections on the cultures that emerge in different conditions and degrees of mobility: from travel to stasis. It will be based on the experience of the Cultural Spaces project, which I witnessed as project evaluator, and will expand on thoughts that derive from my earlier work on travel, juxtaposed with the contemporary zeitgeist of increased mobility on the one hand, and voluntary stasis on the other:
What are the spaces of encounter in the contemporary world, and what role can design education play in these spaces? What happens when migrants and sedentary subjects intersect at a given site, including humans, things and other species? Can we turn these sites into Cultured Spaces, where the agency of design can mitigate conflict or allow new hybrid systems to emerge?
Cross-Culturality, Multidisciplinarity and Globalisation
in Design Education: Experiences through Study Tours.
Assist. Professor Carlos Montana-Hoyos (PhD)
Today’s globalised world offers increasing opportunities in which cross-cultural and intercultural relationships and interactions, as well as multicultural contexts occur more frequently. The growing multicultural nature of education requires that educators develop skills for culturally sensitive and culturally adaptive teaching and learning. This is specifically important for the disciplines of design, which are simultaneously “consumers” and “producers” of culture.
In some contexts Industrial and Graphic design are taught differently and independently, yet in practice both IDs and GDs work as interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary or interdependent practitioners. In a post-industrial world and with the increasing dematerialization of design and the development of new social or digital design disciplines (such as the design of services and user experiences), enhanced by the advent of new technologies and the creation of new modes of communication, marketing and manufacture, this interdependency has become more of a necessary transdisciplinary integration. The rising movement of digital makers within a “sharing” economy has made the disciplinary boundaries between industrial and graphic design blur, and in a globalised and interconnected world our practices have merged more than ever.
This paper describes experiences of five short-term overseas study tours with Australian Industrial and Graphic Design students, to Singapore and Japan. It focuses on cross-cultural and multidisciplinary experiences which have a deep impact on students’ learning. Topics discussed include the rationale for our study tours, development of skills such as cultural awareness and respect for others, multidisciplinary teamwork-skills, enhancement of student-teacher collegiality and student engagement, and authentic and experiential learning for a globalised design practice.
Ko Wai Ko Au, Ko Au Ko Wai – I Am Water, Water Is Me
Tatiana Tavares MA
Kaupapa Moana, Kaupapa Wai Maori, Kaupapa Awa
Ocean, fresh water and rivers
Water is both life-giving and life-destroying. Today, the purity of all water sources are threatened or impacted upon by a range of factors. Both locally and globally, water has become economically, environmentally, ecologically, culturally, spiritually, and politically one of the biggest issues of our times.
Aotearoa’s / New Zealand’s international reputation for being ‘clean and green’ has been slowly but steadily eroded over recent years. Significant events over this past summer include swimming has been banned at ten Auckland beaches this summer (2017) due to human and animal waste, rivers becoming too polluted for swimming (with ‘wadeable rivers’ as the national standard for rivers), town water supplies being contaminated (Havelock North), dams being proposed to assist in intensifying dairy farming (Ruataniwha), aquifer rights sold to multinational companies (Ashburton), while drought takes hold (Canterbury, Hawkes Bay and East Cape). Rural and urban areas face different yet connected problems.
In this brief, Communication Arts 3rd year students from AUT – Auckland University of Technology were asked to initiate enquiry and research into the state of water in Aotearoa / New Zealand, for a global audience. Using story, communication and visual language, students were asked to develop an experimental and exploratory project to consider water in our cultural spaces. Taking WAI – Water, as a theme, they worked to propose strategies and provocations that consider water in both the literal and metaphoric senses. Addressing the political, geographic, socio-cultural, environmental, and ecological issues of water, each student developed conceptual and visual approaches to their selected area of interest. The project was conducted during a period of 12 weeks resulting into a publication and a collection of practical work.
Satellite Workshop: The satellite workshops broaden the original workshop agenda. They were developed in response to international partners’ interest in cooperating with the project Cultural Spaces and Design – Prospects of Design Education.
Various design disciplines are concerned with the topic “water”. Thus, various specific problem-solving approaches through design become manifest which are feasible with regard to a topic of global significance. Moreover, the realization of these workshops yields examples of an international educational format which broadens active exchange beyond the individual academic environment, beyond individual ways of seeing things, and beyond individual design approaches.
Eau! Wasser! Acqua! Water! Agua!
Assoc. Professor Eric Simon
May 6th 2017 – As I write this abstract for our contribution in Basel, the Province of Quebec where I live is going through its worst flood in over 100 years. A combination of winter snow melting and continuous rain throughout the month of April has led brooks and rivers to swell up and overflow, forcing the evacuation of many. Today, I spent the morning at the fire station filling sandbags along with other volunteers from my town. Just a few blocks away from my home, streets are flooded and homes are halfway under water. Water.
Drawing Lab Dessin has been running drawing workshops with Master Fine Arts (MFA) students for the past two years. These interdisciplinary workshops in expanded drawing have brought together students from all seven of our MFA program areas. In the summer of 2016, we were invited to produce work around Water. Participants went off and worked on their own, most often following intuition, letting intention play only a discreet role. Water, as seen through the eyes of these artists, evoked movement, reflection, distorsion, translation. Water is presented here as at once life saving and life threatening. Water is pure. Water is stained. Water is polluted. It exists in different states. Water is steam, is snow, is ice. Water is absorbed. It moves, carries, erodes, transforms. Water adopts the shape that contains it. Water is a shape-shifter. The drawings we have produced communicate all of these possibilities and more.
Satellite Workshop: The satellite workshops broaden the original workshop agenda. They were developed in response to international partners’ interest in cooperating with the project Cultural Spaces and Design – Prospects of Design Education.
Various design disciplines are concerned with the topic “water”. Thus, various specific problem-solving approaches through design become manifest which are feasible with regard to a topic of global significance. Moreover, the realization of these workshops yields examples of an international educational format which broadens active exchange beyond the individual academic environment, beyond individual ways of seeing things, and beyond individual design approaches.