Notes to Future Students — Student Ladipo Famodu & Tutor Anja Groten in conversation with Public Sandberg

DESIGN

The Design Department seeks to cultivate new collective imaginaries reflecting the complexity of designed worlds and design’s implications in social, economic, and ecological issues. As an open and porous learning environment the Design Department embraces peer learning and the co-creation of curricula. Classes respond to the pressing concerns of both tutors and students such as the current planetary crises and prevailing socio material injustices. Throughout their study trajectory students develop tools and methods for research, articulation, and visualization. These tools enable them to express their concerns and position themselves in relation to relevant discourses and engage with the politics inherent in design.

Over two years of practice-based research and collaborative learning, students build lasting alliances. Rather than creating "design projects," they focus on developing durable "design practices" and articulating their positions as critical designers.

The Design Department fosters critical engagement with dominating knowledge systems such as the established design canon and renegotiates prefigured conceptions of expertise, and what is regarded as "best design practices." We are therefore invested in other-than-disciplinary explorations and the problematization of design as a discipline (an established field), a practice (something we are actively involved in shaping), and a concept (a system of thought) [Willis, 2006].

We encourage designers from diverse backgrounds, ages, and abilities to join the Design Department. More important than prior education is a curious and self-driven research attitude and an openness to collaborate and engage with a broader socio-political discourse.