goldsmithsdesign

Exhibition: “Material Legacies- In the Lanscape of the Lost”

An exhibition of work by Design PhD candidate Stacey Pitsillides will be open at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery (11 Stockwell Street, London) between 28 February and 24 March. The show “invites the public to experience how artistic making can provide momentary glimpses of relationships unfolding stories of love and loss.”

Material Legacies is the culmination of a four-year research collaboration with The Hospice of St Francis, a palliative care charity. This collaboration explores how artistic making supports the bereaved to negotiate their own approach to translating and finding a place for the dead in their lives. Within this process, biography is distilled into three distinct experiences, which collect a range of materials capturing the essence of the deceased’s archive. This deep interaction advocates how a material approach to loss can expand our personal and aesthetic relationships with the dead.

This exhibition would be of special interest to those working within the boundaries of art and public engagement, co-design and art therapy through artistic practice.

The exhibition is free, but you can RSVP to attend the private view on the evening of February 28th here.

First year students redesign breakfast to be more sustainable

A glimpse at some recent student work, from senior workshop tutor Richard Brett:

“Ecology of Breakfast introduced the Ecology and Design module to Year 1 BA Design students, using the familiarity of food and drink to present themes of ecology and sustainability, and to investigate their relationship to design practice, making, consumption and waste.

Students were asked to bring their breakfast with them to eat, drink and share during the session, and we set up the teaching space in a refectory style. Using the tablecloths provided, students mapped and analysed the lifecycle of their breakfast to better understand where materials came from and where they went once discarded. They then looked at ways to apply principles of sustainable design to reduce the ecological impact of their breakfast and presented their ideas to the group.

Students questioned the speed and disposability of breakfast, suggesting ‘break-slow’ as a more considered alternative, while others suggested single-serving cereal pouches that dissolve in milk. The group also explored the potential of supermarket rooftops to provide locally produced ‘zero air miles’ fruit and salad veg to the shop below.

Hopefully the session will prompt students to begin to confidently question the implications of using materials and processes they may initially know very little about as they develop their studio projects in the design studios and workshops.”

More photos can be found on Flickr.

MULTIPLEXER Malfiction lectures: GUFFETSCH

The team behind MULTIPLEXER (a journal produced by the Vehicles for Experimental Practice group) is organising a series of lectures in the Design department, with the first one happening on Tuesday, 21 February.

Ghida Bahsoun & Ingrid Rousseau of the multidisciplinary collective GUFFETSCH are visiting us to discuss their approach to expanded design practice. The talk (free and open to all) will take place at 5 30 pm in Room 342 of the Richard Hoggart Building.

Some information on GUFFETSCH:

Guffetsch has been awarded the Hans Wilsdorf Award, with a scholarship of CHF 50,000. The award will help them realize their ambitious long term aim to shoot a full season of ten episodes of their anthology docu-fictional web film series. Guffetsch uses Alfred Hitchcock’s concept of the McGuffin as a device to explore the creative process. The McGuffin is an object or device that enables the plot to unfold but which is not in itself of any dramatic value. As well as containing a McGuffin, an action film ostensibly being made is itself a McGuffin, important only as a device to enable the making of the documentary Guffetsch EP01. The name Guffetsch is a reference to both the McGuffin and the Aletsch Glacier, in Valais, Switzerland, where the idea saw the light of day. Guffetsch gives equal importance to the participants and the narration as well as the audience and the context. The company selects exceptional locations and applies a cinematographic layer of details to immerse the public in the event’s universe.

MA Design: Expanded Practice Launch Seminar, with Usman Haque and Nick Srnicek

The Design department is launching its new post-disciplinary MA in Design: Expanded Practice with a series of seminars discussing the ideas, practices and possibilities that inform the new programme! The first event will feature talks from guest speakers Usman Haque (Umbrellium) and Nick Srnicek (City, University of London).

Usman Haque is a founding partner of Umbrellium. Umbrellium designs and builds technological tools to support citizen empowerment and high-impact engagement in cities. Trained as an architect, he has created responsive environments, interac tive installations, digital interfaces and dozens of mass-participation initiatives in cities throughout the world. In 2008 he received the Design of the Year Award (interactive) from the Design Museum.

Nick Srnicek is a writer and professor. His current research is focused on post-work politics and social reproduction, and how the two separate areas can be fit together. This will be published as a book entitled After Work: What’s Left and Who Cares? He has also written on the transformations of the contemporary labour market (Inventing the Future) and on the digital economy and its dynamics (Platform Capitalism).

When: Friday 10 March, 6 pm

Where: Room 211, Lockwood Building, Goldsmiths