Susanne Stauch

social.transformation.system.design.research

ON GESTALTUNG lecture series | weißensee kunsthochschule berlin | Excellence Cluster “Matters of Activity” Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

“The capacity of Gestaltung is not reserved for design or the arts. It underlies all cognition and knowledge. The structures of our imaginative powers and the grammar of our thinking are based on the structures of our perception and the scope of our capacity for articulation and action. This lecture series will take a closer look at the origins of creativity and how the creative forces can be trained and renewed.” (Jörg Petruschat)

As part of the seminar “Theorien der Gestaltung” we have invited different representatives of a new and extended understanding of the design concept who open our perception towards the role and responsibility we step into as we become designers. It has been an honor to participate in making this lecture series happen and it has been a great eye and heart opener for all the participants.

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Designing Exit Strategies – weißensee kunsthochschule berlin

I am very delighted about the invitation by Prof. Jörg Petruschat to teach a design theory class of my own choice, so I am diving right into the purpose we have dedicated for our organisation Supernova Institute. Instead of being overwhelmed or paralysed by the complexity of the current global crisis, we are joining the quest for future-oriented solutions that take into account the well-being of all living species on our beautiful planet (humans, animals, plants).

This course is inviting the students to critically reflect the appropriateness and cost of the mindset, lifestyle and consumptional habits of the global north (aka. capitalism), and to learn about regenerative projects and attempts of living a more simple, reduced, local life focused around well-being and community. We will take off with scanning through relevant literature and theories, look at design methods and how to embed them meaningfully into the design process, using this to go through a couple of iterative design sprints to come up with first ideas and suggestions for future-oriented concepts of living consciously and intentionally interconnected.

See Project

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Talk at DGTF Conference, Halle Burg Giebichenstein

At this year’s conference of the German Foundation for Design Theory and Research I was invited to speak about the projects I conducted with the University of Arts Berlin in Nairobi, Kenya. In my talk I presented theses and conclusions I draw from the experience of the collaborative work we did there to address a more contemporary, just and realistic approach towards international development and how design could actually contribute towards this change.

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Reflecting Research, DGTF conference at Bauhaus Dessau

Two days of various insights into design research methods and reflections on how design should and could position itself within the context of global challenges as a discipline embracing innovation and solution oriented quest were followed by a colloquium of one of the society’s themes “design promoviert”, where PhD-students and aspirants can present their topics and questions for high quality feedback. I did so and with my still very basic state of research and ideas actually initiated a new format to invite novices with the urge to do research into the arena of the academic research community. It was great to talk about my thoughts and receive very empathic and dedicated feedback. Definitely coming around again!

 

 

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Reassembling Relationships – Conference by DGTF at FH-Potsdam

Planning to go at least one day, since it’s overlapping with the Politics for Tomorrow Conference…

“In a growing state of omnipresent connectivity, it seems that anything can be potentially connected – anytime, anywhere. We are embedded in a myriad of mundane socio-technical alliances, as humans and non-humans ceaselessly correspond and perform. Therefore, the urgency arises to raise the question: What relationships do we enter in to with our fellow agents, what new positions
do we find ourselves in?

From utopian to dystopian visions and realities: We invite perspectives on the role of design in all of this, on new forms of negotiation with and through things, and on what new analytical frameworks this calls for as we further embark in to these technically mediated futures.

The conference will take place on 16. and 17. of October at the University of Applied Sciences. Potsdam. More information on fees and accomodations will follow:

http://www.dgtf.de/tagungen/english

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