Design education has been continuously changing along with the transforming perception of design, its role in the industry, as well as society. Recently there has been a growing recognition of design’s ability to construct and organise both the material and non-material realities, which have political, economic, social, and environmental repercussions. Design is a means of constructing and perpetuating ideological frameworks that make certain lifestyles more appealing than others.

It seems, however, that the design education in practice is not keeping up the pace of the theoretical knowledge production in this discipline. But even more importantly, it is not taking into consideration the need to transcend its disciplinary boundaries.

This discussion will tap into the following questions:

What are the values that we are aiming for, in envisioning and constructing new realities? How to acknowledge the taken-for-granted? How to selectively unlearn while still making use of the knowledge that is accumulated? How to move away from the habitual thinking pattern of creating artefacts within the given system, but rather – to think in terms of a preferable system and to consider artefacts as facilitators of transitioning into it?

Invited speakers: 

Duncan Fairfax, Head of Department in Design of Goldsmiths University of London;
Tara Page, Head of PhD Art Practice and Learning, Centre for Arts and Learning, Department of Educational Studies of Goldsmiths University of London;
Jānis Ķīnasts, urban planner, designer, curator of Cesis Pluriversity;
The conversation will be introduced and moderated by Liene Jākobsone, researcher of LMDA.

The conversation will take place in English via live streaming on the Facebook page of LMDA on October 12, 2022 from 6 pm until 7.30 pm. It is curated in collaboration with Cesis Pluriversity.