PARTISAN DESIGN, WINTERSEMESTER 2023/24
 

TOPIC:
Based on the demands mentioned below, in winter semester 2023/23, as in the previous semesters, we will again cooperate with external partners*, initiatives, individuals and networks, designing for specific tasks. Participation in the previous semester is NOT a prerequisite for participation in this semester!

The topics of the projects will continue to be oriented towards socially relevant issues. Thus, projects already started in previous semesters as well as new projects will form the basis for our discussion. A continuous focus will be the further examination of questions concerning migration, human rights, power structures, memorial culture, and political and social responsibility. We are particularly interested in the role of the creative discipline in this field. Projects will be available in different scopes, both short "sprints" and ad hoc interventions, as well as across semesters.

It is central for us that the students develop and formulate their own perspective on the given topic and bring it into exchange with our partners. Our projects are NOT to be understood as commissions or jobs. During the opening week, we will together discuss what aspects are interesting to us, what do we criticize, where do we see potentials or gaps, what do we want to focus on and the general question whether a project is interesting to us at all. We want to research and design based on our interest, not as part of a demand or requirement given by the project partner. We are self-sufficient but we are interested in the expertise and view of our partners with whom we are in close contact.

We are explicitly not limited in terms of media, but act according to content-related needs. Spatial interventions and exhibitions are just as possible as graphics, illustrations, film and digital approaches. In the opening week, as well as in regular joint exchange and input formats, we will discuss project statuses, observations, questions, ideas, misunderstandings and approaches in the bigger group. We again work in groups because we are interested not only in the exchange, but also in the productive joint development along the common questions. Group work also ensures that students with different experiences and levels of expertise find an environment that allows for insightful cooperations.

Teachers:
As the contracts of Lisa Baumgarten and Felix Egle end with this semester, we will have some changes to ¥the team: Sandy Kaltenborn, designer based in Berlin will take over as guest professor and Anna Unterstab as assistant researcher. We also made some structural changes regarding the distribution of responsibilities to guarantee that the team of us three will provide the necessary consistency and support for all the activities within the Studiengruppe.

CURRENT INQUIRIES:
● How open is our university really? (Link)
Based on critical testimonies provided by individuals from a non-german speaking background we want to address the question how the BURG currently reacts to these specific demands and critiques. What does it exactly mean to position oneself a s „Weltoffene Hochschule“. How is Intercultural exchange really appreciated and what forms of welcome culture does currently exist at BURG. Where do we see need for change? How do we treat racism, discrimination and verbal aswell as physical assaults? We as politically and socially interested students, teachers and employees of BURG want to guarantee that our self-proclaimed aspiration is lived up to in our seminar spaces, corridors, during events, on our websites and within our communication in general. Together with students from abroad, the student representative board, the International Office, the students department, the Equality Office and the working group „Internationalisation“  we want to start to act. We want to develop and design: prototypes, small steps and structural changes, fast printed matter and informative websites but also protected spaces for conversation and points for sharing individual experiences and knowledge.

● Support Sonneberg (Link)
During our opening week, we would like to discuss if and how we as Studiengruppe Informationsdesign should react to the situation in the small town of Sonneberg, Thuringa. There had been various public calls for the support of local initiatives that see themselves confronted with strong political pressure and are also in parts forced to stop their activities.

● “Deescalative Design” in cooperation with Sea-Watch e.V.  (Link)
Our collaboration with the team of Sea-Watch and their rescue ship Seawatch 5 will be continued also in the upcoming semester. Based on existing activities and research there are many opportunities for the development of further projects that deal with the communication on board. Individual focuses can be developed based on your ideas aswell as the experience of the current project team.

● 03437-708687” in cooperation with Wegweiser e.V. (Link)
Wegweiser e.V. approached SI last semester to co-develop a communication campaign to raise awareness for domestic and sexual violence. For this glass vitrines in 5.000 household in Leipzig refion were equipped with a poster campaign addressing the topic and also providing information about emergency contacts (phone-hotline). Larger part of the project was dedicated to research on domestic violence, target groups and visual language which ultimately led to a poster campaign. But the research also indicated potentials for digging deeper into questions about multi-linguality, private and public, media choice and inclusive visual language. The existing research and designdevelopment offers the possibility to engage in the further development of projects addressing the topics mentioned above.

Potential other ongoing projects that are open for continuation will be presented during our end of the year presentation on July 11th, 4:30pm, Hafengebäude ground floor and will be highlighted also in our project index.

A pool of other possible cooperation projects will be presented and discussed at the beginning of the semester and will serve as a basis for the formation of project groups. Those who identify with the demands mentioned below, the working methods described, and the topics covered so far will find interesting objects of investigation and cooperation partners for design projects.

DATES (selection):
● 2.10., all-day: Check-In, round of introduction, agreements, semester structure (digital, mandatory)
● 4.–6.10., all-day: shared opening week (mandatory, as we will then discuss the project inquiries and form teams)
● 9.10., visit to the events on the occasion of the anniversary of the Halle Terrorist Attack
● 23.10.–27.10., all-day: semesterweek 3, projectweek (mandatory)
● 28.11., all-day: interim presentation with guest critic
● 8.1.–12.1. all-day: semesterweek 12, projectweek (mandatory)

MATERIAL (selection):
● Mara Recklies: Können DesignerInnen politisch handeln?
● Eyal Weizman: Open Verification
● Jesko Fezer: Parteiisches Design
● Matthias Görlich: 16 Preliminary Demands

PARTISAN DESIGN. THE MISERY OF PROFESSIONAL DISTANCING
1
We designers and academics perceive social developments that worry us. Unacceptable conditions such as poverty, racism, climate crisis, social segregation, disinformation, environmental degradation, economization, precarity, exclusion and discrimination are intensifying.

2
We see disciplinary practices and an educational system that do not recognize these socio-political problems as their tasks. They insist on self-reference and on the narrow disciplinary boundaries of their professionalism. Thus, not only are important issues excluded, but also people who should be addressees, as well as clients of our work.

3
We rely on the potential of design to counter our critique of the discipline. Especially in teaching, these design-relevant issues can become the focus of our engagement to finally overcome the discipline's misplaced ignorance and redesign new forms of policy collaboration.

4
We want to explore the extent to which our design practice can side with those who are directly affected by social and environmental injustices and have begun to resist them. It is the role of design education to propose new practices that contribute to social change by intervening and taking a stand. Design should be biased in favor of real problems and the concerns of social actors.

5
In doing so, we support each other beyond our individual academic institutions. A structure of exchange, sharing, and caring should enable experiments in partisanship and social and political engagement to deepen and reflect critically.

Partisan design explores the potential of design to counteract harmful socio-political developments by supporting civil society. In teaching in particular, we believe this design-related question should become a new focus for exploring new routines, formats, hierarchies, and collaborations for design practices. It is about an experimental approach that makes a social contribution by intervening and positioning itself in favor of real problems and the concerns of social actors.

These demands are an excerpt of the founding paper of the Network Partisan Design, Prof. Jesko Fezer/HfBK Hamburg, Prof. Maike Fraas/HBK Saar, Prof. Matthias Görlich/BURG. Other members of the network: Hyperwerk Basel, UdK Berlin, TU Braunschweig, TU Cottbus, Die Angewandte Wien, KH Kassel, Sandberg Institute Amsterdam