FINAL DAY IN OUR ICELAND DIALOGUE
We have so far had a fantastic final day in our project. Lots of experimental work has been done and will be posted during the coming days. Ten groups of students are presenting their ideas, results of conversations and experiments. Here is a simple photo album that will be extended as material arrives.
January 27, 2012
Posted in: ARCHITECTURE, ART, DESIGN, FASHION, ICELAND, MUSIC, PONDERINGS, SUSTAINABILITY 
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The project has been run for one week now and people are coming together with dialogue, finding common ways and what is worth talking about and approaching. The groups have moved around town, visited various activities locations, visited arts and design shows and basically come together. The second week is the one for more action ending with a dialogue presentation when we come to the close of this week. All looking very much forward to the conclusions that are going to be the beginnings of new things, ideas and methods.
Here are images from the last day this week.
And here is the project website.
January 22, 2012
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EARLY BREAKFAST
One of the groups is experimenting with dialogue and demonstrations and finding out how to present and live things. Here is a photo session from the event.
January 18, 2012
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REFLECTIONS ABOUT DESIGN AND LIVING
Kristín Gunnarsdóttir, fashion designer and worker in the Iceland Design Centre giving her inspirational talk about creativity and being simple in the search.
January 18, 2012
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ICELAND DIALOGUE HAS STARTED
Hanna Styrmisdóttir giving the first tutor talk in the lecture series.
One of the groups doing exercise
Photo Gallery from Day One click here!
Today we started our dialogue about design and art in current conditions. A completely interdisciplinary work and also arrived visiting students from foreign school. I have 120 students in the course and 10 great mentors doing the dialogue. We had at least great fun last year in this course opening up questions and wonders about the future. I hope for the greatest again with the super gang of tutors and students. Here are a few images from the first day but I will post lots more and we also have an active site specifically made for the course. Here it is.
One of the groups conversing about what to do and finding common grounds
January 16, 2012
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COOPERATIVE WORKSHOP IN ICELAND
Last year we ran a cooperative workshop in Iceland that I was lucky enough to be asked to organize. All students in the Arts Academy (Listaháskóli Íslands) in one year took part so I had 110 students from all the studies, theatre, dance, music, fine arts, various design fields etc. They worked in groups and presented their thoughts and ideas in various forms. This group made an opera about the Icelander and the current economy. Icelandic opera diva Diddú helped out by singing the National Anthem.
Here is a presentation from Neskirkja church in Reykjavik from one other group.
January 6, 2012
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Emil makes a bike!
Family member Emil makes bikes of all types for all types of people. They run the bike shop Krian and here he is making one more bike.
January 3, 2012
Posted in: DESIGN, FASHION, ICELAND Comments Closed
CULTURE AND SOCIETY IN OSLO
Here is the program for the conference. Rather unclear so here is also the link to it.
December 13, 2011
Posted in: ARCHITECTURE, ART, DESIGN, FASHION, ICELAND, ISAC - KHiO, PONDERINGS One Comment
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT IN MOZAMBIQUE
I am returning from one more stint in Africa, or in this case Mozambique, where I came first time almost 5 years ago. I have been involved in developing and establishing the first design and art school in the country on university level, where we just finished the 5th semester of teaching aiming for the first graduates with a BA degree in design around this time next year. The experience has been inspiring for someone like me who has been working in design schools in 3 countries in Europe and establishing the first design school in Iceland over 10 years ago. But that is not really the issue of my blog this time.
What is inspiring to read this week is the journal The Economist where the image shows the subject: AFRICA RISING. I must admit that there are raised issues that I have been experiencing a lot. There they say that after decades of slow growth, Africa has a real chance to follow in the footsteps of Asia. When I decided some years ago to go somwhere where it would matter what I teach I did evaluate Asia and other global locations and came to the conclusion that there is no need for my support or educational knowledge in those regions. There are loads of designers in other global locations while in Maputo when we started the school we found only 3 people with university education in design and of course not all of them were available for teaching or able to. Anyway we started the design teaching and have brought in Nordic teachers and from other countries and at least now the atmosphere in Maputo is stimulating with the design students. (A comment from my student Tabea in Laos is that the situation is the same as Mozambique there in Asia, so I should not generalize whole of Asia and she is right).
The Economist states knowledge that over the past decade six of the world’s ten fastest growing countries in the world were African and in eight of the past ten years Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan. African communities have started to grow very fast in manufacturing and service economies. This is something I have experienced in Mozambique. When I arrived to Maputo to live there only one student in the pre university art school had an email and none of them had a computer. Today in my school in Matola every student in second year has a computer, we use them just like in Europe, testing ideas and promotion in images and structure, using all kinds of old software. The students are learning very fast as is so common when they have available computers in their hands. Our school also has available access to the Internet, a fundamental issue in learning design and understaning it as part of use and internationalization. I link my students in Maputo to Facebook friends in other locations and we all help each other globally on the internet. The teaching itself is like in all design environments, not so formal but explorational where everyone learns together through testing and distributing the latest tricks etc.
The Economist states that Africa now has a fast growing middle-class. According to the World Bank, around 60 million Africans have an income of $3000 a year and soon will be 100 million in 2015. The rate of foreign investment has soared in the past decade and for example China’s arrival has improved Africa’s infrastructure and boosted the manufacturing sectors. Other non-Western countires like Brazil (very active in Mozambique since they have the same language culture), Turkey, Malayzia and India are moving into business in Africa.
The Economist also states that Africa’s ethusiasm for technology is boosting growth and my experience in Mozambique is that they are jumping over development steps, for example going directly into 3G mobile use skipping land telephone systems. Today, Africa has more than 600 million mobile users which is more than America or Europe. Mobile banking and digital economic advances have moved incredibly fast.
All of this is what I have been feeling in my time in Mozambique, the young are moving incredibly fast to our world of living in internet world supporting all services and development. It has been great to follow this development and feel how the coming generations are coming into being as modern activists. I am proud of my students and see nothing but positive future.
December 8, 2011
Posted in: AFRICA, DESIGN, ISAC - KHiO, MOZAMBIQUE, PONDERINGS Comments Closed
DESIGN WORKSHOP IN MOZAMBIQUE BECOMES TRADITION
The digital class where the students experimented with layers and compositions in photoshop and illustrator.
We have had regular workshop with the design students in ISArC in Maputo. This time the workshop was directed as very technical and practical, especially in fashion and graphic design. The guests from my school in Oslo this time were DAGFINN SIGRIDSON SKOGLUND, coming for the second time with fashion knowledge and HAAVARD STEENSEN with his great graphic and web design knowledge.
Now the school has been run for 5 semesters although the students still have two more semesters to go and will graduate with a BA degree in design around this time next year. We did run an experimental semester before the school started which was an excellent tool for developing the program after months of writing and planning and also to exercise the teaching with new personal. Here is really a link to the history of my work in Mozambique. This will soon be 5 years since I came first there and had the first meetings about study programs etc. Time passes and it is great to enjoy the fast development in Mozambique. Now is finishing the 5th semester since we started!
The side image is by Sandra Pizura for fun
Here is a photo album from the course showing the methods and athmo in ISArC.
Tayloring going on where they use Mozambican capulana as material for shorts. Tailoring class driven by Dagfinn from Norway
December 3, 2011
Posted in: AFRICA, DESIGN, FASHION, ISAC - KHiO, MOZAMBIQUE Comments Closed
