New international cross-disciplinary project launched at WSA

DESIGN FUTURES!

This new project aims to test, research and analyse design’s impact on a globalized society. Based in the entrepreneurial networking activities of universities, foundations and arts organizations located across four continents, DESIGN FUTURES! offers a multi-dimensional programme for connecting communities and young people interested in the quality and sustainability of good design in a globalizing world.

DESIGN FUTURES! is inclusive . Its partner organizations around the world represent many millions of people in emerging societies whose lives are dependent on current and future trends in globalization.

DESIGN FUTURES! is diverse . Its activities include sustainable design education programs, real life social and cultural projects, arts development activities and research projects concerned with the future of social change and devising strategies to gain control of this change.

DESIGN FUTURES! is entrepreneurial . Its funding and organization takes advantage of the skills and ambitions of many individuals and groups, using the digital technologies of globalization to create discussion forums and action camps. These will make a difference around the world, linking isolated people and communities who need common solutions to global problems of good design in the environment, health, communication & the arts, democratic cultures, and in gaining a secure, sustainable future for all.

The Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art, Design & Media offers to sponsor and liaise internationally in the development of DESIGN FUTURES!

A series of WSA events and activities will help to shape its development:

1. A 5-day conference on Art, Criticism and the Forces of Globalization, 10-14 Sept 2012
2. A network structure resourced through WSA research funding
3. PhD programs sponsored by WSA, other universities and organizations
4. An international conference on art and design in Iraq and Iran in 2013

While an international partner network is set up to formulate the methodology, we invite you to express your interest in joining the network or designing part of the future project(s) under development. TRANSLOCAL is a first project being developed within Design Futures! by partners based in the UK, Spain, China, India and Mexico.

For further information and discussion of your involvement in DESIGN FUTURES! please contact Head of Department Graphics, Art & Media at WSA: Ed D’Souza on R.E.D’Souza@soton.ac.uk.

TRANSLOCAL is an international art project addressing contemporary social, environmental and cultural issues across the globe.

Theme

The fundamental realities of migration, minorities and identity are central to a world that is shifting its balance from West to East, from analogue to digital. The routes of migration are taking unprecedented detours. Individuals move across states and continents, carrying their original identities and adopting new ones, creating hybrids that adapt to anywhere but belong nowhere. We want to ask: who is the Other now and what guiding this fluid identity? What is his/her place in society? How is the Other recognized and considered?

TRANSLOCAL wants to look at the consequences of the interaction between the stable and the moving, the local and the foreign. What shape are the migratory dynamics taking? And, most importantly, can art highlight these dynamics? Can art assist a fraught communication and deal with the issues of acceptance and integration?

TRANSLOCAL is a positive answer to these questions, and proposes art as a way to re-address prejudice towards the Other, with a particular focus on developing economies and on those who are affected by the recession of the West.

Structure

TRANSLOCAL works as an umbrella that develops an on-going yearly project exploring the concept of translocal dynamics in migration and addressing it from unusual, diverse points of view, such as language & skin or body & food. The project encourages students internationally to produce work that deals with these issues in a direct and practical way, in the form of public interventions and art that links to the communities it is created for, posing questions and stimulating reactions.

Display

The work will be created in relation to specific areas of intervention, specifically urban areas in Mexico, India, China and Spain. The artwork produced will be displayed on large screens as well as created ad hoc, to be presented on screens available around the world.

Online presence

In addition to the worldwide displays on large screens, a website will be developed, which allows increasing interaction in the form of production of new content and art, as well as an exploration of the work created by the students. The Internet and virtual spaces are linked to the idea of TRANSLOCAL on a conceptual level, now that a big cut of the world’s population juggles more than two identities, inhabiting a seventh continent. TRANSLOCAL’s site is used both to highlight this dynamic and to make the project accessible all over the world: it is a virtual hub that works as a creative outlet, a conversation starter, and a point of contact to involve as wide a public as possible.

Institutions Involved

Winchester School of Art will develop the brief and artwork

Partner Institutions:

• University Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico
• Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, China
• Elisava School of Design, Barcelona, Spain
• Further institutes in India and Mexico