Participants, Konzept, Timentable

How does the art and design school produce its subjects, namely professional designers? What values, criteria and mechanisms are tacitly or explicitly deployed in education? To answer these questions, I will explore the relationship between the school and the so-called real world, the affinities between old and current waves of student protests, the targets of institutional critique, the role of cultural capital and critical disposition in fostering emerging professional models. (Silvio Lorusso, Expectations as Reality, newdesigncongress.org, 2022

"Die Grundidee basiert auf der Wiederbelebung des Konzepts der Räte aus der Tradition der Arbeiter*innenbewegung. Räte waren Kampforgane der Klasse gegen Faschismus, Krieg und Kapitalismus. Und zugleich Keimzellen einer neuen Form von Demokratie und Selbstverwaltung, in deren Rahmen die Menschen ihre Angelegenheiten selbst in die Hand nehmen konnten. Diese Doppelfunktion basiert auf einem dynamischen Sozialismuskonzept, das wir in den traditionellen kommunistischen Rätebewegungen ebenso finden wie in der kurdischen Bewegung, bei den spanischen Anarchist*innen oder bei den italienischen Autonomen. Wir wollen Institutionen aufbauen, die geografisch begrenzt, aber thematisch universell sind. Wenn wir davon sprechen, dass wir »Kommunen« aufbauen wollen, dann bedeutet das, dass wir in kleinen territorialen Einheiten – Nachbarschaften, Kiezen, auf Perspektive Betrieben – Selbstverwaltungsstrukturen ermöglichen."

"(...) the people who are most adversely affected by design decisions — about visual culture, new technologies, the planning of our communities, or the structure of our political and economic systems — tend to have the least influence on those decisions and how they are made. Design justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face."

"Privilege, however, comes with responsibility to share the wealth you have arbitrarily received. Wealth as education, information, skills and the capacity to come up with ideas. I choose to share it through the work that I do, trying not to compromise any of my aesthetic or intellectual convictions. That in itself is a contradiction: to make art, to write or to design with the intent to contribute to the well-being of others. It is a contradiction because art, literature and design cater to the very same systems that create inequality, so the solution to any social challenge can never come from doing any of these things."