***PRIORITY REGISTRATION IS OPEN: YOU CAN NOW SIGN UP FOR 3 DAYS OF MAGICAL RISO***

Please register here

The world top Riso Printers, Publishers & Artists are coming to the Van Eyck for the third edition of the Riso biennial Magical Riso from 16–18 November 2018. A 3-day event comprising two conference days and a (final) day presenting an Art Book Fair, publisher talks, an exhibition, workshops and demonstrations.

Risograph printing – digital stencil printing – is loved by artists, graphic designers and photographers for the quality and vibrancy of the printed matter, the surprising colour effects and the unexpected results the machine puts out. Moreover, it provides the opportunity for self-publishing.

A specialist in Riso printing, the Charles Nypels lab for Printing & Publishing of the Van Eyck, is organizing for the third time the Riso Biennial with the support of RISO Benelux.
Presenting a different set up and theme each time, the 2018 edition carries the subtitle Monumental Riso. Rather than focusing on the ‘traditional’ use of risograph in making editions, fanzines, flyers and small posters, this edition, the organizers want to highlight the monumental qualities that can be achieved by using the risograph technique.

The Monumental is also the theme for an all-year research In-Lab mentored by Van Eyck advisor and graphic designer Paul Bailey, exploring together with Van Eyck participants “The Art of Forgetting”. The results of this collaborative research project will be on show during the Riso Biennial.

Next to the conference and the In-Lab, a Monumental Riso Exhibition will open on the 17th of November with newly made works at the Charles Nypels Lab by 12 artists working in risograph, mimeograph and screen print.

REGISTRATION
Both the conference and tabling at the Art Book Fair are free. To finalize registration, we will ask a deposit to cover for food & drinks in our incredible new Food Lab. You will receive tokens on arrival for the days you registered for. We offer no refunds.

Deposit:
3 Days: €130
2 Days: €100
1 Day: €60

Please note that there is limited availability for attending Magical Riso.
People who wish to attend the full programme have priority. Registration for the full programme of three days is now open. In case there are still places available, registration will be open after 3 September to everyone; you can then register either for 1, 2 or 3 days.
Make sure you don’t miss out! Register now for all 3 days by filling out this form.

*On finalizing the form, you will be redirected to Paypal where you can pay your deposit. Please make sure you have an active Paypal account and that you have your login code at hand.

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS (tentative list)
Sigrid Calon @sigridcalon The Netherlands
Martín La Roche @quilloo Chile
Bananafish Books @bananafishbooks China
Michiel Schuurman @michiel_schuurman The Netherlands
Perfectly Acceptable @perfectlyacceptable United States
De Kijm & Zonen @dekijm The Netherlands
Paul Bailey (In-Lab) @misterpaulbailey Ireland
Scott Boms (Facebook Analog Lab) @scottboms @analoglab United States
O.OO @odotoo_com Taiwan
Drucken3000 @drucken3000 Germany
Kyuha Shim @q.shim South Korea
Raumpress @raum_press Spain
Zohra Opoku @zohraopoku Ghana
Risolve @risolve United States

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS EXHIBITION
Dan Walsh #danwalsh United States
Johannes Schwartz #johannesschwartzGermany
Kees Goudzwaard #keesgoudzwaard The Netherlands
Martín La Roche with Erwin Blok (mimeograph) @quilloo Chile & @blokerwin The Netherlands
Michiel Schuurman @michiel_schuurmanThe Netherlands
Paul Drissen @pauldrissen The Netherlands
Raewyn Martyn @fallingwalker New Zealand
Sigrid Calon @sigridcalon The Netherlands
Stanley Donwood @stanleydonwood United Kingdom
Zoe Beloff #zoebeloff United States
Zohra Opoku (screenprint) @zohraopoku Ghana
Curated by Van Eyck Head of artistic programme Huib Haye van der Werf

***The full programme will be announced after the summer

Organized by Jo Frenken, head of the Charles Nypels Lab with the support of Sigrid Calon

With the generous support of RISO Benelux

 

On the 26 June 2018,  MAGMD course leader Paul Bailey and colleagues, Eva Verhoeven (LCC, UK),  John Fass (LCC, UK), Marta Camps Banque (BAU, Spain) and Jaron Rowan (BAU, Spain) convened and hosted two conversations on design research as part of the Design Research Society International Conference in Limerick, Ireland.

The aim of the conversations was to explore alternative and experimental ways of engaging in debates and discussions on topics relevant to design research. In this case we discussed the importance of embodiment and the space and limits for developing a radical imaginary in design research. Two simultaneous conversations were carried out in two different pub snugs in which a very limited amount of people, due to special reasons, could attend. The conversations were streamed through a micro-site designed for the event, that allowed users to tune into either conversation live. The conversations accessed via the microsite may be ‘assembled’ or listened to separately. The site, also functions as an archive of the conversation, allowing people to come back, listen to parts of it or mixing it as the please.  

Access The Radical Imaginary here

The conversation on the radical imaginary started with a provocation, suggesting the need for a more energetic and imaginative vigour in design research. Can the radical imaginary open new spaces for struggle, contestation and creation of different politics? To do so design must avoid the pitfalls and morality that define thinking about the possible, the probable and the preferable and explore radical ways of thinking and doing in common. We fear that imagination has become an individual escapist / utopian project, still, we consider that design can be an interesting space where to ground imagination in real and possible practices. That is why we discussed the need to explore strategies to commonize imagination, to think of it as a collective tool to build better presents.

The second conversation, on embodiment, placed human and non-human bodies at the centre of the conversation and suggested that design research should make room for more performative and symbiotic relationships between subjects and objects. We discussed about what kind of bodies are privileged by design research and what embodied experiences are we currently excluding. What are the cultural myths and metaphors that construct our lived and embodied experiences and how is that story perpetuated in design research? Opening up this debate involves going beyond dualities such as brain/body, thought/action, inside/outside of the body, identifying interfaces between bodies, systems, networks and corporeal processes, full hearted participation.

The conversations were carried out in two local pub snugs: The Tom Collins Bar on Cecil Street and the Jerry Flannery’s on Catherine Street. Debating in such specific enclaves, had a dramatic influence on how the conversations were developed. The first pub could almost fit 8 people (some sitting on the floor), the second about 13. It was hot, we were cramped, the air became stuffy, we faced constant interruptions and noise pollution. We also invited local storyteller and myth keeper Eddie Lenihan to contribute and disrupt the conversation on embodiment.

The format defined the time of the conversation, as after an hour it was too uncomfortable to continue, but also obliged attendants to be listen closely as they were physically very engaged in what was being said. We were literally too close to avoid interacting with the rest of people in the room. The format also allowed attendants to explore spaces alien to the main congress, interacting with the city and learning about the function of pub snugs, a new type of spaces for international researchers.

We are currently working on the recordings of the session, now on the microsite, to signal items and themes discussed, introducing references and links to specific projects and allowing listeners to interact visually with the conversation. In this sense the site will be transformed into an interactive and visual archive of the conversation.

Link: www.radicalimaginary.com
Photography: John Fass

In Search of… Collaboration
Design in Perspective

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Wednesday 4th July

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Outline:
As a culmination of the “In Search of…” series, our session explored various methods and modalities of ‘Collaboration’, and what it entails across objects and practices. During the first half of the day, we conducted the Forensic Design Club, where we investigated books and typefaces that were outcomes of collaborative initiatives.

Words by:
Helen Taranowski, Kwo Guo and Jaya Modi (Forensic Design Club session), Jaya Modi (Session with Mia Frostner and Rosalie Schweiker), Virginia Christakou, Masumi Ishi and Jaya Modi (Images), Jaya Modi (Editor).

 

THE TEAMWORK AND TYPEFACES
OF RADIM PESKO

Independent graphic designer, Radim Pesko specially crafted a typeface for Dot Dot Dot magazine (which later became The Serving Library) from 2005-2010. The typeface ‘Mitim’, is an evolving typeface spanning 10 versions with its family of fonts developing for each new issue of the magazine, thus reflecting varied contexts, themes and approaches across their aesthetic. For example, the first version, ‘Mitim Alpha’ is recognisable by its triangular serifs. ‘Mitim Gamma’ (DDD#13) was made in collaboration with Louis Lüthi and Stuart Bailey, and includes many mathematical and pictorial symbols compiled together to bring yet another new experience to the magazine’s readability that is constantly evolving over time. What is interesting to note is how the graphics continuously evolved to respond to the magazine’s content, thus making Radim a contributor of sorts and expanding on the possibility of cross disciplinary interactions to inspire extremely dynamic collaborations.

The Lÿno font family designed by Karl Nawrot and Radim Pesko includes four uniquely styled typefaces directly inspired by individual artists Jean (artist Jean Arp), Stan (director and photographer Stanley Kubrick), Ulys (Franco-Japanese animation series Ulysses 31) and Walt (founder of Disney Pictures Walt Disney). Each typeface celebrates a different personality through the non-traditional shape and structure given to its characters. The resultant typefaces follow aspects and forms of the works of their muses. For example, ‘Lyno Jean’ pursues an organic composition of fluidity, reflective of Jean Arp’s creative style, and ‘Lyno Walt’ takes clear inspirations from Walt Disney’s handwriting. These impressive and charismatic typefaces have popularly been used as display text for type-led campaigns, like the ‘Pride of Madrid’ in 2017.

 

PAIRING FOR PUBLICATIONS
MAXIMAGE AND IRMA BOOM

The 80 page book Maximage Formula Guide is an outcome from a collaborative workshop project involving the designers from Maximage Studio and students from ECAL/University of Art and Design, Lausanne. The book catalogues experiments on a printing press, exploring colour combinations using overprinting techniques. It details a number of special colours for offset printing developed by the students during the workshop, printed on uncoated, coated and coloured papers. The publication successfully showed us the variety of unique colours that can be conjured across transparencies and colour interactions. The project evolved further into the development of a website to allow other users to test the colour profiles for use in their work.

The book Reality Machines accompanies the exhibition of the same name by artist Olafur Eliasson. Eliasson works with sculpture, light and colour and his practice looks at how we see and perceive things. His works always centre around purposefully designing the space in which the viewer experiences his creations and artworks. This exhibition publication is a collaboration between Eliasson, the gallery that held the exhibition, and book designer Irma Boom. Similar to Eliasson, Irma Boom too explores ‘experience’ though her design to provide an engagement with the reader. Reality Machines guides the readership through Eliasson’s seminal works from the 1960s to 2015, when the exhibition was held.

Throughout the book you have the sense of experiencing the artworks themselves. Boom has designed the publication to be an immersion into the realities created by Eliasson. The reader is instructed a pace to the reading by a number of double-page spreads that are left almost completely blank, except for words such as ‘breathe’ and ‘pause’ featured the foot of the page. The use of ‘space’ in her editorial layout encourages you to take your time, slow down your experience and consider more deeply what you have seen, in the same way that the exhibition may have been designed. The photography, use of transparencies and colourful acetates elicit a transportive quality of design. Certain pages are designed to even rewind back a few seconds within the photographed spaces, by repeating movement and imagery. This way, the book works as a translation of the exhibition across time and space, allowing a true sense of appreciation in the viewer.

Another publication featuring Eliasson’s works is Contact, by Studio Olafur. The book catalogues the works and experiences of Olafur’s 2014 – 2015 exhibition ‘Nothingness, is not nothing at all’, which held many of his light based works. The design of the book truly embodies this genius loci through its utility of print and paper. The publication is divided into 2 sections; one in black and the other in white stock. The black paper features multiple images of the works from the exhibition, its colour replicating the small dim lit rooms from the original display space. Some images were printed as outlines in a photo-fluorescent ink, that shined when seen in darkness, this too played well with the idea of viewing light based works within dark display spaces.

It can be seen as almost a poetic metaphor when we reflect the way coloured imagery is printed on black paper. Considering the process, the paper would first need to be printed with white ink on a litho offset printer, then coated with colour prints on top; illuminating the need to create ‘light’ before ‘dark’. This causality was echoed when we considered the white section of the book that presented multiple drawings of the planning of the exhibits. The detailed sketches and notes of and for the installations acted almost as ‘negatives’ to the photographic replications just seen on the preceding black stock.

 

PRODUCING IN PARTNERSHIPS
MIA FROSTNER AND ROSALIE SCHWEIKER

After enjoying a nice picnic in the park, we met with our guests — designer Mia Frostner of Studio Europa and artist Rosalie Schweiker about their ongoing collaboration which has been developing across projects ever since they started working together on a visual campaign to remain in the EU.

Speaking to two strong women in the creative field was refreshing. They spoke of their symbiotic style of working that mutually helped their individual practices. Rosalie described how she often generates a lot of ‘content’, as she’s good at bringing people together to engage in activity. Whereas Mia as a graphic designer helps structure and formulate these approaches. Together they’ve worked within themes of political climate. The examples of productions they brought along showcased their unique sense of aesthetic, employing simple bright visuals with hand drawn and written material. Rosalie self admittedly often uses her handwriting and scribbles as an accessible visual tool which Mia contextualises with layouts and coherence of style. What is striking is their strong and catchy captioning with slogans like “Potatoes are immigrants”, “You Brexit you Fix it”, “Leaving the EU won’t bring back the empire”, etc.

 

Rosalie quipped that often she considers herself to be a “consultant without solutions” and one can see how such utility of humour is key to their success in bonding with their audience and as it often stands to empower them. We were able to view their material generated for “Keep it complex” that tries to help creatives deal with a post Brexit environment in the Art and Design sectors.

They’ve also worked together on a series of events titled “Unite Against Dividers”. Additionally they are involved in the making of a public artwork in Birmingham, conceived through a radical proposal including other practitioners as well, and is facilitated through Eastside Projects, seeking to be managed together with the local community.

 

FURTHER RESSOURCES
— Radim Pesko
https://www.designboom.com/art/informal-meetings-by-radim-pesko/
https://vimeo.com/130747071
— Mia Frostner & Rosalie Schweiker
http://makeitclear.eu

In Search of… Birmingham
Design in Perspective

—

Wednesday 6th June

—

Outline:

Our trip to Birmingham, was more than just a visit to a different city to explore. In more ways than one, it tied-in with our previous trip to Bristol. The people we had previously met and the works we had seen, had already set the stage for the wonderful persons and practise that we were to encounter just yet. MA GMD participants got a chance to meet curator Gavin Wade of the Eastside Projects, a man who works in close collaboration with designer James Langdon, whom we had met last trip. We also got  a chance to meet designer duo Harry Blackett & Robin Kirkham of An Endless Supply studio, who had previous experience working at East Side Projects, and were more than happy to share their experiences and journey with us.

Words by:
Chi Kit Chan (An Endless Supply) / Jaya Modi (Gavin Wade + Eastside Projects) / Yikai Qian and Jia Leng with Jaya Modi (Forensic Book Club session) / Photographs by Mi Jin, Chi-Wei Li (Vicky), Yikai Qian and Jaya Modi. Edited by Jaya Modi.

‘THE WHITE CUBE IS A LIE’
GAVIN WADE, EASTSIDE PROJECTS

Gavin Wade of Eastside Projects considers himself an artist-curator, and believes that neither can exist without the other. What is interesting about Wade is his complete rejection of the ‘White Cube’ aesthetic and his efforts at accumulating a narrative through his exhibition space.
Wade holds his space as a testing ground for multiple artists to play in, and curator with experiment with. He tends to retain elements from previous exhibitions to encourage a continuous narrative running through his site; one that crosses multiple disciplines and practitioners. His reluctant control over the site specifications leaves the exhibitions to often reveal details from previous ones thus creating a more wholesome and possibly enriching experience for the viewer. We too, could see leftover imprints and paint on the walls, and massive filled in concrete sections, all from earlier exhibitions held in the same space.

Gavin Wade spoke at length about how this approach affects his professional interactions; where some collaborators take to the challenge, and others simply don’t. As different exhibitors employ structures or intervening constructions to demarcate their work, Wade expresses how he (or the artists themselves), playfully interject alterations on them to create a multiverse of practise. An example of this would be to cut holes into a wall seperating two practitioners, thus resulting in a change of visibility, and the resulting narrative of the exhibition. What is even more laudable is the consistency with which these changes in the space are maintained in the printed paraphernalia. For example, an artist who chose to cover up modifications made to the flooring by pouring a layer of fixative on the floor, dictated that the printed material for his exhibition be printed on sheets that featured an obscuration of previous content using overprinting techniques. This speaks to the truly symbiotic relationship kept intact between the space and it’s print media.

The exhibit that currently inhabits the space of Eastside Projects has been put up by Mix Rice, a creative duo based out of Seoul. Their works deal with migrant identity and memory. They enable conversations using a workshop led approach and then translating the collected responses directly to exhibited materials.

One of the works currently on display, were outcomes of sessions held with refugees and migrants, where they were asked to explore their memories of fruits and vegetables that they recalled from their homelands. Eventually the session extended to fantasy, and things that they missed or would like to taste. This piece really connected with the viewers, as we all have something that we hold close to our hearts, something we like to eat; comforting and reminding us of home. The creations were an assembly of moulded clay, drawings, hand scribbled notes  and photographs, all displayed on the floor level atop amoeba shaped wooden flat tops to encourage a full and complete viewing of these ‘landscapes of memories’. It was intriguing to hunch down near the work and note the fragments of fruit, the use of colour and paint, and the utility of seeds and stones in these replications of both real and fantasy fruit.

‘AN ENDLESS SUPPLY… OF DESIGN’
HARRY BLACKETT & ROBIN KIRKHAM

Our afternoon search took us to an area of repurposed industrial buildings; painted in tones of vibrant azure blue, Minerva Works houses multiple small studios and exhibition spaces. It is here that we met with Harry and Robin in their studio office. They spoke to us about the challenges in bringing together complex research materials to a practical designed execution that maintains subtle devices to elucidate their ideas.

A creation that caught everyone’s fancy was the publication and printed paraphernalia for the exhibition The Empire Remains Shop. None of us were familiar with Empire shops, but we were explained that these were hypothesized outlets to teach and familiarise the British public on cooking and consuming the foodstuffs from Britain’s colonies and overseas territories.

Thus this project with Arts Council England, speculates on the possibility and implications of selling back the remains of the 1920s British Empire Shop, in London today. To create this piece, Harry and Robin took inspiration from the unevenly divided five panels of traditional British Empire Shops. They turned it into a grid system that then dictated the design layout on the website, publication and exhibition signages. The main identity of this project references a typeface found from the archives and documentation of this historical empire.

Displayed above is a specific insert in the publication. It presented an olden recipe for christmas pudding, hypothesizing how the recipe might have been presented with in redients and their placesof origin given a longside. However, Harry and Robin’s design intervention on this piece strikes through these details to replace them with the current procurance of the foodstuffs, thus giving it a refreshed contemporary twist.

The duo’s previous design exposure seems to have encouraged them to work collaboratively. They spoke of how they enjoy bringing together works and ideas from different artists, supporting each other between styles and rationales. Their participation in the How to work together project, truly celebrates this effort. Robin enlightened us with the work that went into creating the typeface for the How to work together endeavour where they asked each artist to customize one character of the alphabet. These specialised letters were then integrated to set a new typeface that reflected the spirit of the project.

Finally our session with them wrapped up with conversations about the advantages of being in a small city. They insisted that the studio benefited by being part of the small and close network of the art community in Birmingham as it grants a certain visibility to the artists and designers that helps them build closer relationship with art organizations and gives them the needed recognition for a loyal client base.

‘…OF CATALOGUES AND CURIOSITY’
(FORENSIC DESIGN CLUB)

Although the In Search Of… Birmingham didn’t have a specific theme, meeting Gavin Wade and examining the curatorial space of East Side projects, did set a tone and underpin our subsequent explorations. Thus, during the Forensic Design Club, it seemed only fitting to interrogate a series of archival and exhibition catalogues that too embodied a new style and sense of ‘cataloguing’ ; across methods of documentations, production for publishing, etc. — whether by its layout, pagination, print technique or mode of access.

Unlike other books that commonly function to record exhibitions, the Xerox Book itself embodies the exhibition. As an attempt at pushing the boundaries of a closed gallery space back in 1968, the book held 25 photocopied pages of each artist’s work. This immediately made the ‘exhibition’ accessible to a wider audience. By presenting the exhibition in the form of a book, it allowed a more constant circulation. However, making each copy on the Xerox machine was an expensive technique. In 2010, this very format allowed more bootleg photocopies to be made and proliferated further. For, during an exhibition held by Eastside Projects, personal copies of this book could be procured but, only in exchange of books that either featured the exhibitioners’ works, or were published in 1968. Thus, consequently the scale of the exhibition forever grew, with the series of exchanged books touring alongside as a forever expanding catalogue in itself.

Every Colour By Itself is a collection of Francis Upritchard’s bright and fluorescent, nude men and women sculptures. The book, designed by design collective Åbäke, takes the reader on an explorative visual journey. The sculptures are laid out according to the colours in the rainbow, and the page numbers refer to the works, not the pagination order. Each signature of the book is printed with one or two colours (from the 4 offset colours CMYK) — a detail which is also revealed by the publication’s title. For example, the regular yellow has been swapped for a fluorescent one. The only alteration the designers are making to the sculptures are a slight shift in the colours, but taking advantage of the reproduction methods (and tools) available to them. All information printed on the endpages (first and last pages of a book which ‘binds’ the cover and the inner pages), this book contains no word to describe and explain the artworks, leaving the reader to weave their own interpretations and thereby forming a vivid personality for the book itself.

Lastly, The Most Beautiful Swiss Books are a series of publication that present the winners of an annual design competition. We were able to see the 2006 and 2007 issues. Each edition takes on a new style of presenting the submissions to the viewer and tackles the idea of representing books within books. One issue presented the flat layout of every book, with pictures of its best features; a combination of direct reproductions of the print files along with the crop marks, or using the core elements of the structure of the book like its stock, typefaces etc. The other, replicated exact pages from the various winning books and consolidated them to indexes, chapters, etc. As the book encapsulates the records of books itself, there is something very poetic about each issue’s rationale of chosen display and design. While images and typefaces may present themselves as notes, the repetition of paper and binding acts like repeating rhythms between various renditions of a song that is sung again and again.

Other books that we looked at during the Forensic Design Club included Supports Structures, by Céline Condorelli, Book edited and designed by James Langdon, In die Höhle by Francis Upritchard and Ultramoderne Reader conceived by Tiphanie Blanc, Yann Chateigné, Jean-Marie Courant.

In Search of… Bristol
Design in Perspective

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Wednesday 23rd May

—

Outline:
With an aim to explore a different city through the lense of a cultural institution and its history, MA GMD participants searched further afield to Bristol for the day to speak with James Langdon and Vanessa Boni. The session was facilitated in Spike Island’s studio spaces and galleries. James worked as a designer for Spike Island for five years and Boni is currently their curator.

Writers: Katherine Evans, Jaya Modi, Gabriela Matuszyk, Yue Zhang, Wei Dai, Jialei Hong / Photographer: Xi Ning. Editor: Aadhya Baranwal

THE CREATOR
JAMES LANGDON

James Langdon, armed with a box full of printed materials, greeted the group in one of the residency rooms, around a large table and generously navigated them through his practices, projects and collaborations.

The initial discussion was led by the different cities in which he had developed his practice (Birmingham, Liverpool, Birmingham again, and now Bristol). Birmingham seemed to be of significance to him, as he studied, got his first design job at Ikon Gallery, and co-founded Eastside Projects gallery space there.
Langdon spoke honestly about the precarious working conditions outside of London, and shifting focus when life’s responsibilities take priority. From recommending the Forest App to combating multiple-project procrastination and reassuring the group that people can find and build a community of collaborators when one doesn’t exist, he offered practical strategies to tackle some of the issues that designers face.

He also highlighted five key partners that he has continued to working with; Sofia Hultén, Celine Condorelli, Karl Nawrot, and as previously mentioned, Peter Nencini and Gavin Wade. Talks about his collaborations and his transition from Fine Arts to Design were followed by conversations about the dynamic role of a designer.

For Langdon, having largely worked as a designer in the arts and cultural sector, the experiences came from working with fellow designers, writers, artists and curators. He explained how the notion of the artist as an omnipotent figurehead whose ideas could not be questioned seemed alien to him. Instead, he challenges this top-down, one-sided dialogue approach by working extremely closely with his partners and clients. Through these negotiations and conversations he seems to gain an in depth perspective, which he then conceptualises through design decisions and production techniques.

This is exemplified in his work with the Eastside Projects. In some of the printed ephemeral shown, a ‘primitive grid’ that celebrates a philosophical quality of design has been used: organic blob-like shapes create a rhetorical landscape that forces an alternative meaning-making process. This is dictated by a systemic implementation of layering and overlapping that evolves to re-question and re-interpret existing frameworks with a much more immediate style – one that doesn’t offer clarifications but acts as a response to the arbitrations of the continuous iterative process. This layering ties into Gavin Wade’s curatorial vision of Eastside Projects; in which an artspace acts as a canvas, keeping a trace of what has happened there, purposefully overlaying on existing, in order to oppose a ‘white cube’ approach. By using his process as the message, Langdon places a critical comment on the role of designer in imposing a hierarchy to the information and authority of a designer as an interpreter.

One of Langdon’s distinctive approaches for designing publications is viewing the production process as well as the formal and structural aspects of a book, as a means for communication. In the publication Pugin’s Contrasts Rotated (see image below) we see etchings of Gothic and Neoclassical architecture that were first published by Augustus Pugin in his 1836 book Contrasts. Due to the production processes at the time, the two illustrations were printed on a single page, side-by-side, sideways. Langdon photocopied the illustrations and rotated them 90º, using facing pages and the binding as a contrasting device – as he explained, the publication was an ‘inquiry into active site of display’.

Moving to a close, Langdon spoke of his emerging research where he examines the practice of designer and educator Norman Potter and his ideas of ‘Isomorphisms’ in design. Isomorphism exists when two different sets of elements follow the same structure – an occurrence featured in Sofia Hultén’s book Here’s the Answer, What’s the Question? (designed by Langdon), as she explores quantum physics through ordinary sequences.

The session concluded with a ceremonial walk to James’s car, a box full of his books in hand, one last collective act before going back to the gallery to continue with the visit.

THE CURATOR
VANESSA BONI

The group met Vanessa  in the afternoon. As the curator of the ongoing exhibition by Alex Cecchetti and Zoë Paul she talked through her experience and responsibilities at Spike Island.

She spoke about how exhibiting works by different artists with their own themes and ideas together was challenging and required being tactful. As an organiser of an exhibition, one needs to study the artists and build an overall understanding of them before mapping a framework of the displays. Through efficient communication with the designer/artist, they are able to share empathy with the exhibits and find connections between them. In most cases, these are not an absolute theme or topic, but may be similar critical contexts, sentimental attachments, or even type of material.

Wandering around the exhibition hall, the connections between Alex’s and Zoë’s works could be easily felt. Alex Cecchetti is an artist, poet, choreographer and writer who has a unique narrative construction. His works are under the theme of a music palace, most of which begin with a poem and transform into an object, a performance or a situation, focusing on how the piece would be experienced physically and emotionally by the audience. That being said, the works exhibited by Zoë Paul primarily deal with sculpture, textiles and drawings and brought in a new discussion on our relationship with tradition, and the shifts in perception around the value of an object according to time and context.

Vanessa and her colleagues found that the two artists shared peaceful and joyful emotions in their works and offered a fully immersive experience to the audience.

The responsibilities to organise an exhibition is more complex than we thought. When it comes to various institutions, public commissions, communities and other organisations, the work to organise it well is exhausting enough. At the same time, the designers and artists have their own ideas of how to display their works, it’s hard for the critical discourse of a curator to find it’s own place. Vanessa explained the importance of researching the exhibits beforehand and communicating with the designer/artist. It’s what she spent the most time on.

THE CREATIONS

Moving on and towards the end of the day, the group quickly shared studied and shared the findings of five books at the Castle Park (for the Forensic Design Club)

One of the most fascinating books out of the five was ‘An Envoy Reader’, by Ross Birrell, an artist, writer and lecturer. It is designed and published by Lemonmelon, which is a riso publishing studio founded by designer Marit Münzberg. This book contains two booklets in a bubble envelope, both of which are riso printed in two colour, black and blue. One of them is titled Envoy and the other is Reader. Envoy is a visual essay explores the artist’s role as a potential messenger of meaning and information.The Reader has images corresponding to Envoy, a collection of pictures in which people reading/giving/throwing a book. It’s a dynamic book that gives the reader an experience versus just a read.

A close second was ‘Pugin’s Contrasts Rotated’. James Langdon makes a corrective gesture, revisiting Pugin’s 1836 book Contrasts and creating a comparative analysis of what Pugin considered glorious architecture and ugly architecture here. James chose 15 pairings from Contrasts and rotated 90 degrees, used photocopy to reproduce them on facing pages. The borders of the original book and the traces of copying were kept as it is, making the book look like a book within a book.

Further readings:

James Langdon’s current research on Norman Potter:
http://www.servinglibrary.org/journal/11/now-in-color
Interview on a School for Design Fiction by James Langdon:
http://modesofcriticism.org/a-school-for-design-fiction
Podcast with James Langdon on the Intersection of Design Criticism and Practice:
http://scratchingthesurface.fm/post/171369173490/66-james-langdon
East side Projects:
https://eastsideprojects.org/
Spike Island Website:
http://www.spikeisland.org.uk/
Alex Cecchetti Videos:
http://www.alexcecchetti.com/videos

In Search of… Communities
Design in Perspective

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Wednesday 25th April

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Outline:
This session aimed at thinking about community and how artists, designers and institutions are working for and together with local communities. The day opened with a visit to design studio HATO, who works a lot with local communities. This was followed by a interesting conversation with Amal Khalaf from the Serpentine Gallery’s Education team. She shared her experience, her political approach to education and how the gallery works together with artists, local schools and families. We ended the day at the Showroom Gallery, where we enjoyed an exhibition of art works by eight artists – There’s something in the conversation that is more interesting than the finality of (a title). Finally, we had a conversation with Louise Shelley from the Showroom, who runs their Communal Knowledge programme. It was a whole day journey engaging with terms like: communities, co-creation, designing power, social justice and construction of knowledge. And here are some reflections from the students.

Words by: Rong Tang, Sui-ki Law (Suki), Cristina Rosique, Yuehan Zhu (Hannah) / Images by: Shengtao Zhuang (Till), Xiaoxuan Guo (Kwo) / Editor: Huancui Chen (Clarice)

STUDIO HATO, HATO PRESS
& HATO LAB

The day begun with a visit to design studio HATO, who works a lot with local communities and co-create most of their design projects with their audience. The studio specializes in using design to engage and inspire communities and people around them.
Mélanie Dautreppe-Liermann, Creative Director, introduced serval fantastic works to us. This was an opportunity for the students to have a close conversation about their projects and the process of each design. One of their project “Start with a mark” (D&AD 2018 festival’s visual identity) takes the form of a collaboratively designed 3D digital drawing tool, that promotes creatives within the  community to participate in producing a visual identity. The project corresponds to D&AD’s brief of “stimulation, not congratulation.”
All completed marks are then added to a gallery and used by HATO to help develop D&AD festival and its New Blood Awards. Subsequently, HATO uses the sketches to produces augmented reality, where the wide community becomes central in a collaborative context.
In addition, there are also lots of interesting works for children, Mélanie showed us two engaging project “How to make a Space Bus” and “Design for play”. Both of them are exemplars to express the idea of designers ought to design altruistically, not design for ourselves but for the public. So to collaborate with people in the process could produce better results.
HATO taught us when the creative community comes together and get a chance to work to the public, their project outcomes become a connection between designers and audiences, which could express both the public’s view and also designer’s perspective.

THE SERPENTINE GALLERY’S
EDUCATION PROGRAMME

We had a meaningful conversation with Amal Khalaf from the Serpentine Gallery’s Education team. She pointed out some important ideas, such as citizenship and authorship in a project involving communities. Her whole approach to education (when working with affected communities, such as migrants) is to involve them in the process from start so they can have a sense of ownership of the project.
It is also fascinating to learn about how she approaches and engages with communities. It takes time to build a relationship and get trusted. The key is to be regular and to share. Simply giving free coffee could help creating time for a conversation. People will be much more willing to give you their time if you have taken the initiative to offer value. We could always start with thinking about the needs and habits of those who we want to approach. Casual conversations or even trust can then be developed more easily. Furthermore, there could be creative ways to work with communities. An example she gave is the Implication Theatre, which communities are involved through role play. Her experiences are insightful to many of us whose project involve engagement with the public

THE SHOWROOM GALLERY’S
COMMUNAL KNOWLEDGE

Through many different collaborative projects we started to think about “Who gets to speak?” and “How designers engage with their neighbours or communities?” Louise Shelly, who runs the programme, mentioned several projects: one was about domestic designer shared authorship, another was about working with teenage groups and women’s groups to talk about female rights…  It is not only about inviting enough people to one project, but also trying to let audiences engage in design projects. Getting feedback from the audience is not easy, and it is very slow and long process. There are always many questions and challenges when working with communities. For instance, how deep does the collaboration go? Or how did they use the platform — like gallery space or common room? What is it about certain platforms that attracts different art and design projects? We need to make full use of each platform and get a good interaction with the audience and remember to not only seek feedback for one’s own work but be willing to give constructive feedback to other designers.
When the project is immersed in communities, the empathy is needed. There should be a fellowship which would be feeding with regular meetings and understanding, and try to avoid to come up with the answer to solve “their” problems in order to not end up in othering.
For instance re-projecting (London) by Ricardo Basbaum is an interesting protocol. He connected 9 locations which were determined by placing of an abstract shape onto a map, the shape created a framework for nine individual or groups (women’s refuge, a domestic worker, an LGBT centre…) to work together, and for thoughts, experiences and ideas to circulate. The shape, which Basbaum calls NBP (New Basis for Personality), has formed the basis of numerous works of his.
During our talk at The Showroom, we discussed about not every artist could work with all the issues and communities. And how each agenda demands a different approach, in consequence it will produce different outcomes.

FURTHER READING

More works from HATO
Liverpool Biennial Space Bus
Liverpool Biennial Dazzle Island
Beazley Designs of the Year Awards
D&AD 2018 Start with a mark
Start with a mark is available to try

A selection of projects from Serpentine Gallery’s Education team
Radical Kitchen
Language and Power
Implicated Theatre
Moving up microsite (designed by Hato)

More about The Showroom     
There’s something in the conversation that is more interesting than the finality of (a title)
Communal Knowledge
Ricardo Basbaum: re-projecting (london)

 

Join MAGMD course tutor, Tony Credland, and colleagues from the Design School for the symposium to launch Hard Werken: The Designer as Author

Thursday 17 May
6-9pm.
Lecture Theatre C 
Free and open to all.

Please RSVP via Eventbrite

The Designer as Author: A SYMPOSIUM ON THE LEGACY OF HARD WERKEN (1979-1994)

To celebrate the publication of Hard Werken: One for All by the Dutch publisher Valiz this symposium will examine Hard Werken’s contribution to fields of design and culture with a focus on the idea of the ‘designer as author’. From the outset the Dutch design studio Hard Werken occupied a position between design and fine art and between 1979 and 1982 their self-published cultural magazine Hard Werken promoted contemporary art practices and was itself an example of graphic authorship by communicating more through its design than its content. This symposium takes their DIY-mentality and their interdisciplinary position between design, authorship and cultural entrepreneurship as a starting point and asks what contemporary designers and artists can learn from the legacy of Hard Werken.

Speakers
Dr Ian Horton, Bettina Furnée, Dr Russ Bestley and Tony Credland
The symposium will be followed by a book launch and drinks reception supported by Valiz.

ABOUT THE BOOK: Hard Werken: One for All—Graphic Art & Design 1979–1994 by Ian Horton and Bettina Furnée is the first major publication on the experimental Rotterdam-based design studio Hard Werken [Working Hard]. Hard Werken’s anarchic design, smattering high with low culture and running contrary to typographic conventions and modernist currents of the time, characterized this group as a brash, elusive, and distinctly Rotterdam phenomenon. However, working in Rotterdam and Los Angeles, the core members Henk Elenga, Kees de Gruiter, Gerard Hadders, Tom van den Haspel, Willem Kars and Rick Vermeulen also had worldwide ambitions. This feisty and uncompromising book examines Hard Werken’s practice and legacy in an international context and addresses their contemporary significance. It investigates the group’s pioneering role in the cultural life of Rotterdam and their impact abroad, especially the US, by examining the innovative aspects of Hard Werken’s practice, which combined graphic and fine art languages. Designed by the Rotterdam design studio 75B the book contains a myriad of images and contextual insert texts by Russ Bestley, Max Bruinsma, Tony Credland, Frits Gierstberg and Noor Mertens.