The Arena is a stage for design students to question the default option and to find alternate forms of expression. We will present – PechaKucha style – non-stop daily programming of performances, films, debates and presentations.
Visitors will gain access to a behind-the-scenes look at both the underbelly and more cerebral side of design. Prominent international speakers like Ole Bouman (Design Society, Shenzhen), Gabriel Maher (De__sign(er) and Queer thinker), Jan Boelen (Curator), Ralph Nauta (Studio Drift), Alex Coles (Design critic), Julie Lasky (New York Times), Paul Makovsky (Metropolis Magazine) and David Hamers (Reader and Researcher, DAE) will join our students and alumni to explore current topics being dealt with in Graduation Show 2016 – identity, queer, health, and the digital future of museum curating.
Round Table discussions
From Sex to Pregnancy in the Health Industry
Sunday 23rd October - 12:00 hrs
This Round Table is Dutch spoken.
Jacques Maas (gynecologist at Máxima Medisch Centrum), and Ad van Oostrum (GGzE) will join four DAE Graduates on stage - Naomi Jansen, Michèle Degen, Pleun van Dijk, and Hannah Lutterveld.
Moderated by Olga Pullens.
Design Academy Eindhoven regularly starts partnerships and programmes with industry, businesses and institutions. Via these collaborations, our students are challenged by the demands of the real world. At the same time the real world is able to explore how design thinking can help them prosper. What often develops is a mutually beneficial collaboration that blends practical thinking with conceptual investigations.
The Woman-Mother-Child Centre of Máxima Medisch Centrum has been working with DAE since 2015. Our Man and Leisure students tackled interior and routing issues with them, but also questions about pregnancy diets, shame, cultural differences surrounding sex, and the strive for post-partum physical perfection. In this session we will hear about the students’ projects and how they have been received by the professionals.
Queering Design
Tuesday 25th October – 12.00 hrs
With current graduating students Olle Lundin, Isabel Mager, Renee Mes, Floriane Missilin, Josh Wolford.
Moderated by DAE alumnus Gabriel Maher.
Queer and design are not new friends. Aaron Betsky has been contemplating the gendered nature of architecture and interior design for decades now. What has changed is the mainstream media’s embrace of the subject. Five of our graduating students have tackled the topic of queer in their research and will join alumnus Gabriel Maher on stage to discuss the challenges their work poses to the status quo of design.
How to Reshape Asian Creativity in a European Context
Wednesday 26th October - 16:00 hrs
With Ole Bouman (Design Society, Shenzhen), Jing He (DAE Master graduate), Chen Jhen (DAE Master graduate), Yun Tian (DAE Master graduate) and Yaolan (Violet) Luo (DAE Master alumnus).
Moderated by Christine de Baan.
Design Academy Eindhoven’s renown is rooted in the freedom it offers its students to explore their personal fascinations. Almost all the graduation projects are self-initiated and often deeply connected to a student’s own interests, culture and vision. How does this work for Chinese students whose secondary education lends more towards an emphasis on a collective pursuit? How does this difference manifest itself in design? How can the design relationship between Europe, China and the rest of Asia be mutually beneficial and flourish? As director of Design Society - a new Chinese cultural platform based in Shenzen, Ole Bouman is building an interface between China and Europe’s design cultures to create better understanding and more opportunities for both.
Design and Museums: what works, what doesn’t?
Thursday 27th October - 12.30 hrs
With Jan Boelen (artistic director Z33, Social Design department head, DAE) Catelijne van Middelkoop (Man and Communication department head, DAE and Professor of Visual Communication Design, TU Delft), Ralph Nauta (Designer at Studio Drift and DAE alumnus).
Moderated by Ole Bouman (Design Society, Shenzhen).
Two DAE Designers (Simone Post from Envisions, and Filip Setmanuk a current graduate) will pitch two ideas/concepts to a panel of experts who will discuss how the pitch would fit into a museum setting – what constraints do museums face and why? What are curators looking for? What common pitfalls do students fall into when translating their ideas into objects and projects destined for exhibitions? In this session we will hear from leading experts in the field about why they select one idea over another for an exhibition environment. And from the other side designers will share the challenges they face dealing with a curator’s demands. What is the role of physical exhibition spaces in a predominately digital era, and how can graduates with a preference for social rather than cultural values be better included?
In Need Of …
Saturday 29th October - 12.00 hrs
Alex Coles (Design critic), Julie Lasky (New York Times), Paul Makovsky (Metropolis Magazine), Martijn Paulen (Dutch Design Week), and David Hamers (Reader and Researcher, DAE)
Moderated by Nathan de Groot.
We are surrounded by an over-abundance of things, which begs the question - What are we “In Need Of …”? Today design is embraced as limitless - a multifaceted and hybrid discipline. Design thinking can contribute across fields and domains. But where does that leave young designers? How do they find and jump into such possibilities, and how do they position their skills in a collaborative environment? And what about a new vocabulary? How can the more social, intangible side of design be better presented and explained in events like Dutch Design Week?
This round table is in collaboration with Dutch Design Foundation.