Abstract
This paper examines the impact of a design course assignment, the Institutional Investigation, within the Embedded Design MFA at Gothenburg University, and specifically reflects upon the designed strategies for care and an attempt to alight the tacit in-between (Akama & Prendiville 2014) of the dynamic interactions of students, educators, and the administration. The assignment tasks the students to analyze the institution’s spaces, programs, and structures and culminates in proposed interventions. Pedagogically, it introduces Embedded Design, familiarizes students with the institution, and invites early institutional critique. However, over 5 years, challenges have been revealed in the questioning of teacher roles, staff dynamics, and work environment safety. Despite this, the assignment has initiated organizational changes beyond students’ involvement. This example of embedded collaborative design practice highlights the plurality of roles, situatedness, and logic frameworks engaged (Kubinyi et al. 2023, Ahmed 2014). It necessitates adaptive leadership (Heifetz et al. 2009) while fostering a culture of collective care, feminist teaching (hooks 1994), and criticality (Latour 2004) to empower teachers, students, and staff agency. This paper aims to share the stickiness of adapting positionality, critiquing norms, and triggering change. The paper examines course evaluations and documents a series of cases where the students initialize change in the institution, as well as earlier modes of self-critique conducted (www.ttttoolbox.net 2022 and Hookway & van Leeuwen 2023). And ultimately it is a telling of mentoring agency-driven pluralistic practice of both designing and learning in higher education.
Presenters
Samantha HookwayLecturer / Director of MFA Embedded Design Programme, Design, HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Embedded Design, Institutional Critique, Collaborative Design, Higher Education, Design Pedagogy
