Studio Digital Native - Emmy Bacharach, Rhiarna Dhaliwal and Ibiye Camp
While our curriculum proposes a structured approach, each student comes out of the studio with their own individual design projects. This means that the students develop their own briefs that relate to larger leads that we set, to find their own interests, their own voice about what they define as design, as a reflection of not only aesthetic practices, but also of their individual methodology. We introduce the students to different forms of designing and researching, as well as softwares in order for them to have a repertoire of skills that they can apply out in the real world while conducting design projects. We give our students and ourselves the task of exploring and expanding tools while creating critical research to support it, always being conscious about how students position themselves.
We start each semester with an introduction to a new theme and brief, so there's no expectation that students would already be experts in working with augmented reality, game engine design or 3D-modeling. We incorporate workshops with a playful approach to guide our students in a way that relates to living with technology. Besides, we have a focus on research, which means that we always incorporate research questions which are specific to the subjects we look at. Writing new briefs for each semester allows us to include what's happening in the world into the curriculum, which we feel is crucial. From there, students develop their own individual research questions, which are often informed by current events. We also encourage our students to design their own tools through group projects, which foster collaborative work and skill sharing. We're also excited for students to collaborate beyond our studio, for example by exploring the motion capture workspace at the academy and connecting to the facilities that Eindhoven offers beyond the Design Academy.
Another important element of the studio is bringing in real world practitioners for guest talks that fit with the theme of a semester. For example, we have previously invited a designer, researcher and artist based in New York, who presented a new publication on Afrofuturism. We’ve also hosted a liberation activist, who presented a project exploring links between the environment and architecture in the Amazon forest. We try to bring in artists or designers, researchers, writers, curators or editors that we perceive to be fresh and relevant, who are honest about showing their practice.
We are happy with how the studio has been evolving over the last few years and that, over time, a collaborative and supportive studio culture has evolved. We've had many students return, being excited to go further into the studio methodology and their practice. We want to continue to build on this because we really love the fact that we get to start from a common point and have each student develop their own practice from there.
