The Dutch Design Summer School Open Set (Rotterdam, 24.07 - 06.08.2016) is a two-week thematic program consisting of a series of intensive one or three day workshops, symposiums and film screenings, led by Dutch and international designers, artists and researchers. Applications open.

Deadline for applications: 1 June 2016

The goal is to promote and enhance the social value of design by facilitating debates around the chosen theme from a rich diversity of perspectives, design trends, traditions, and cross-disciplinary cultural practices. The event aims to offer international participants a studio environment where they are inspired to step out of their comfort zone and question the conventional ways of working, experiment with different strategies, techniques, ideas and cross-sector collaborations in order to develop their own practices with confidence. Open Set is aimed at international designers practicing in the broad range of creative sectors, artists and researchers, and it is also open to non-designers who are interested in the research topic and can contribute from their professional perspective.

theme – memories of the future (vol. 2)

The theme of Open Set 2016 is ‘Memories of the Future,’ and it explores how the notion and perception of memory can be used to stimulate alternative approaches towards the future.

How are memory and the future connected? When we construct the future we are using the same process as when we reconstruct the past, because we can’t imagine the future in a vacuum, separate from our own experience, and cultural and historical references. We re-contextualize our previous experience (as individuals and as collectives), give it new meaning based on the conditions of a present moment, and transform it into a future possibility. We would argue, therefore, that memory should not be seen as an archive of references or stock of information, but rather as a verb, an action, a process, that helps us reach the future. But how do we activate memory? Is memory something set by our cultural frames of reference? Or are memory and heritage, as well as the future, concepts which can be brought to a public debate? In this context, design and art can be seen as agents, while proposing visual narratives, experiences or group actions, through which the future and memory can be observed and discussed by large audiences.

tutors

This year we invite designers, artists and researchers to contribute to the event with simultaneous workshops, public interventions, film-screenings and lectures, representing various kinds of expertise as: graphic, interactive and critical design, curating, participatory design and art.

An earlybird course fee is available till 1st May