WHAT IS DESIGN?
The first evening Dinner. Many ingredients but all from cod.
Here is a small photo album from the event
Design as a profession seems to sit in a strange determined location when we use the term. Many schools run specific courses in design: graphic, fashion, product etc. I was told last year by a friend that now in the English language there are 2500 terms that include the term design : and that is somehow telling a completely different story to what many of the design schools do. Furthermore, many people that do not have design education are today some of the most prominent designers in the world.
In my opinion this is good. The internet and the opening up of the creative labour market has taken away the walls that were made after the war, when professional groups linked together to protect their profession. Now in design schools more and more students are taking on projects that earlier might not have been defined as design, but rather maybe social innovation, technical development etc etc.
Dinner preparation evening two.
This week I have been allowed to take part in a project in the Design Faculty in the Iceland Academy of the Arts, where the whole 3rd year travels to a location on the East Coast of Iceland to interact with the locals, both workers and social developers. We found out that the task was so huge that in the end we decided this time only to look at the food production in the region and maybe later touch on other issues like tourism, glacier development etc. The meeting with the locals started with a good and very informative meeting with the policy makers and runners of institutes in the community Höfn and then we have been looking at the products that come from the sea to the community and how they are developed, exported and developed into simpler products and food. Here is a site that is a kind of a diary about the action this week where the students fill in all the time their experiences and wonder about potentials. In Iceland very much is underdeveloped in terms of communication to government, the public and guests, the increasing number of guests that come from all over the world. The students can invent new methods and angles that might later develop into better information, new fashions and new products. Have a look at the site and see yourself what you think. The information is very much in the blog format but later the students will make a proper documentary that hopefully can interest also further communities in Iceland understand Design as an important part of development.
September 22, 2011
Posted in: DESIGN, ICELAND, SUSTAINABILITY
