Interested parties can now register for this year’s summer school, which will take place in Pillnitz from 20 July to 25 August 2023. In close dialogue with the special exhibition “Plant Fever. Botany, Man, Design” (29.4.-31.10.2023) and the collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts, this year the Franco-Italian duo Laura Drouet and Olivier Lacrouts (Studio d-o-t-s) will curate the six-week programme of the international summer school as Heads of School. Under the title “The School of Phyto-centred Design”, participants are invited to be inspired by the plant world in Pillnitz Palace and Park in several nine-day workshops.
Image above: Design Campus Summer School 2022 © Photo: Tilmann Finner
In view of the already experienced effects of climate change and the threatening future scenarios, it is imperative to dissolve traditional design principles of growth and the exploitation of limited raw materials. In a multidisciplinary and transcultural discourse and research environment, the summer school questions the antagonism between humans and nature that is deeply rooted in Western thinking and invites joint critical and utopian thinking.
Weekly workshops, collection visits and lectures are led by designers, theorists, performance artists, curators, filmmakers and philosophers. This year’s tutors include Fernando Laposse, Emma Bruschi, Passepartout Duo, Simone Kenyon and Suzanne Bernhardt. Due to the nomadic lifestyle of the Heads of School, they will be on site in Pillnitz throughout the summer school and provide an insight into their research and exhibition practice.
The Design Campus Summer School of the Museum of Decorative Arts is a curatorially developed, interdisciplinary and future-oriented think tank that addresses current issues of social change, digitalisation, the climate crisis and other challenges. The aim is to engage in dialogue with experts, the public and the museum team to question and rethink the role of museums of applied art today and to demonstrate and strengthen the impact of design in society, science and the economy.
Studio d-o-t-s (Laura Drouet and Olivier Lacrouts, Heads of School) is a nomadic curatorial practice that engages with rural areas of Europe and a non-human-centred design perspective. The work of d-o-t-s is characterised by a participatory and interdisciplinary approach that includes writing, exhibition design, hands-on workshops and design commissions. Recent and ongoing projects include Plant Fever (2020-2024), Greenhouse Stories (2021-2023) and Stork Fiction (2022-2023).
For more information on the project and its actors, as well as the detailed workshop programme and registration, please visit www.designcampus.org.
Registration closes on 15 June 2023 and is open to anyone with an inquisitive mind and a burning desire to change the world through design. For those who decide quickly, there is an Early Bird Ticket until 15 April 2023. Special emphasis is placed on diversity and inclusion. The working language is English.