‘ series, presented by CARADT in collaboration with the Master Institute of Visual Cultures (MIVC), explored the often-overlooked systems that shape our world. As part of this series, on December 5, Professor Sebastian Olma and researchers Lauren Henderson, Renée van Oploo, and Rob Leidekkers facilitated a workshop with Master students from the Ecological Futures program. This session, titled Welcome to the Weird and the Dirty, encouraged participants to embrace the complexities of the real world and question conventional design methodologies through an unfiltered lens.
On December 5, as part of the In(di)visible Infrastructures (link) series, researchers Lauren Henderson, Renée van Oploo and Rob Leijdekkers did an exciting workshop with master students of the Ecological Futures programme. The point of departure was the realization that moral purity is the privilege of those who are far removed from unsterile reality. The real world is weird and dirty. Seriously engaging with it requires nuance. Yet, nuance should not be misunderstood in terms of politeness or restraint. On the contrary, nuance means the unrestraint acceptance of a given situation in all its aspects, also those that appear to us as vulgar or offensive. Only then will we be able to develop strategies that are naughty enough to bring effective change.
In this workshop Welcome to the Weird and the Dirty students left the privilege of moral purity to review existing design methods by acknowledging the weird and dirty reality of the infrastructures that shape our lives. What are the roles we take on inside these different infrastructures and how does our behaviour shape them in return? Reversely, can we identify the weird and dirty components of design processes that can contribute to approaches that are nuanced enough to generate effective change? Do we dare to mix the desired with the undesired to create practices and organizational forms that can serve as prototypes of weird and dirty design?
‘Our research group investigates the role artists, designers and cultural producers in general can play in developing the aesthetics and poetics of a desirable future.’
Sebastian Olma is professor Cultural and Creative Industries. He works for the Expertise Centre Art, Design and Technology.
‘In social and cultural research there is increasing importance in research methodologies and devices that cut across fields and disciplines, becoming transdisciplinary.’
As a researcher at CARADT, Jess explores mental health in the creative sectors. Her work investigates burnout and depression, using artistic methods to make emotions visible and influence artistic practices.
‘Within my practice I create spaces for introspection while exploring ethical dilemmas. ’
In 2017, I graduated from St. Joost in Den Bosch, and I hold a Master’s in Applied Ethics from Utrecht University. Presently, I work as an artist, am an active member of the YAFF art collective, and concurrently serve as a lecturer.
‘As a result of my current research, I ask the students the questions “what is your work” and “what works for you.’
Rob Leijdekkers is a researcher at the Cultural and Creative Industries research group and a tutor at the Art & Research programme at St. Joost School of Art & Design.
The research group Cultural and Creative Industries investigates the role of artists and designers as creative innovators and drivers of social and economic change. Affiliated researchers analyse the cultural and creative industries from a critical point of view and examine the conditions under which timely forms of aesthetic expression and social connectedness can actually take place within the precarious reality of this field. What economic models are required by artists and designers to create a meaningful practice within the aesthetic, social, and economic intentions of the cultural and creative industries? What skills sets are required for those artists and designers who don’t just want to follow movements, but actually shape novel social and economic models of the future?
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