MASTER CLASSES RESEARCH WEEK
re-ACT by design
Designing the meantime
14-18 February 2022
Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp
in collaboration with UA Design Sciences
International Design Workshop week (IDW)
IDW2022 will be the third edition in a row that focusses on what is seen as the most epic construction project of Antwerp in the XXI century: the capping of the ring road.
IDW2020 looked upon the capping of ring road as the creation of a new urban common. It focused on the Northern part of the ring road, more particularly the connection between Luchtbal and Lambrechtshoeken, and aimed at giving voice to those groups and communities that are not reached by regular participatory approaches and at revealing qualities of places that were overlooked. It was an edition in which the whole area and connection between both neighborhoods were explored.
IDW2021 continued this endeavor, in spite of rigid COVID restrictions. It focused on culture - culture as an emanation of what was and what is, but also as a space where future is made. Culture is performative. Cultural “performance" gives exposure to both "what lives among people" and "how the world could become". Next to local groups, communities and individuals, the edition specifically targeted youngsters of Luchtbal.
IDW2022 expands the scope of targeted actors, and next to local groups, communities and individuals, now particularly reaches out to schools (children of 10 -14 year old). It explores the statement that infrastructural works are not primarily a matter of engineering, but of culture. Wicked problems, such as the capping of the road, call for holistic approaches. Arts and Architecture provide the way to bring Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics into the realm of society and culture. From STEM to STEA²M.
The workshops will focus on following design-action challenges:
- How can huge infrastructural works and projects of urban transformation be understood from the social and cultural context in which they intrinsically take place, and to which they intrinsically belong?
- How can the long term of the construction works become a period of meaningful transition and empowerment, rather than a temporary nuisance and burden?
- How can Arts and Design turn infrastructure and engineering into a cultural endeavor?
REGISTRATION RESEARCH WEEK
Five-day working week with workshops in mixed groups with students of Fine Arts from the Academy and students of UA Departments of Architecture, Product Development, Interior Architecture and Heritage.
For Master students of the Academy who included 'masterclass 2' (3STPT) in their study programme. There will be no theory lessons nor studio work in these weeks. This allows participating masters to make time and space for new experiences.
Find here the complete program of 21 interdisciplinary workshops.
Composition of the groups?
Each workshop has a fixed number of places reserved for students of the Academy and of the university disciplines, thus creating interdisciplinary groups of 15 to 18 places per workshop, of which two to three places will be available for Academy students.
How and when to register?
This practical information is communicated internally to the students.