Lera på Nääs – Amazing anagam, Sommarkurs på HDK Göteborg
I år inviterar Högskolan för Design och Konsthantverk till vedbrännings-workshop vid skolans fältlaboratorium beläget på Nääs, ca 3.5 mil utanför Göteborg. Förutom en unik ugnspark med ett antal vedugnar finns där också en fin verkstad i en mycket vacker omgivning med bl.a. ekskog och badsjö.
Kursen kommer att ledas av keramiker Morten Löbner Espersen, från Danmark, professor i keramikkonst på HDK. Han har bjudit in två av sina välrenommerade kollegor – keramikerna Kennet Williamsson, Sverige och
Michael Geertsen, Danmark.
Läs mer om hur man ansöker HER
March 1, 2010
Posted in: NEWS
MEETING OF TEACHERS IN ICELAND, JANUARY 2010
The conference plenum, all participants on a rolling chair so they could socialize. Jóhannes Þórðarsson goes through proceedings.
In January was held a very stimulating meeting in the Iceland Academy of the Arts. Cirrus thanks the Icelanders for a very smooth and entertaining program.
This report will only note the main points. The most important part of these meetings is that teachers meet and compare notes about all kind of issues, often quite outside the themes of the meeting. Therefore the program is deviced for many opportunities of informal encounters.
There were many themes touched upon in the plenum sessions, but the main parallell sessions concentrated on:
1. Design Innovation for Gender Equality. This session was chaired by Sóley Stefánsdóttir, research project leader with Hildur Fjóla Antonsdóttir from the Gender Equality Training Programme at the University of Iceland.
The session did actually create a blog website for cumulating material about the issues. It was also decided to continue with this as a development project for the coming year and run a working group meeting in Stockholm.
Here is a link to the website and the project description is also there.
2. Post Crisis, How does it affect the Design Schools? Chaired by Dóra Ísleifsdóttir lecturer in graphic design, Iceland Academy of the Arts with Jonathan Romm, dean, Oslo School of Architecture and Design.
Here is a short report from the session
3. A Common Master Program in Design, chaired by Tine Kjølsen, head of the graphic design department in Danmark Designskole with Jóhannes Þórðarson, dean of the design and architecture department in the Iceland Academy of the Arts.
Tine Kjølsen has written a draft for a common MA that can be downloaded here. It was decided to continue the work in a smaller working group and report in the next general assembly in September.
The programme, other than the parallel sessions included the following:
First morning:
Jóhannes Þórðarson, dean of the department of design and architecture welcomed all to the conference.
Hjálmar H Ragnarsson, rector of the Iceland Academy of the Arts opened the meeting with short info about the history of the institute and the outlook for the coming years in view of the financial situation in Iceland.
Halldór Gíslason, leader of Cirrus thanked the Iceland Academy for the invitation on behalf of the network and spoke briefly about the philosophy of the Meeting of Teachers as a place for people dealing with especially development of MA education to compare notes and experiences.
Tine Kjølsen, head of graphic design in Danmark Design Skole spoke about the work done in the session in Copenhagen last September to develop a common MA program in some form.
Teo Enlund, professor at Konstfack in Stockholm went through the experiences that he has had in a Common Europen Master Program. Here is his presentation.
After the sessions the respective groups gave their findings.
Morning of second day had the following:
Jóhannes Þórðarson gave an outline of the proposed MA program in the Iceland Academy of the Arts
Lorraine Farrelly, associate head of the Portsmouth School of Architecture, University of Portsmouth in England gave an outline of the UK system and the MA program that she has been involved in consolidating.
The social program is a fundamental part of such a meeting and was very well planned by the organizers, evenings and a trip in the crazy Icelandic storm on Saturday.
February 5, 2010
Tags: design, nordic, nordic-baltic Posted in: Reports and Proceedings
A NEW BOOK ON FINNISH DESIGN
FINNISH DESIGN – A Concise History by Pekka Korvenmaa
Pekka Korvenmaa Ph.D. is Professor of Design and Culture at Aalto University’s School of Art and Design. He has published books and articles on the history of Finnish architecture and design both in Finland and abroad.
336 pages, richly illustrated - ISBN 978-951-558-295-9 - 48 €

February 5, 2010
Tags: design, finland, history Posted in: NEWS
Call for applications: The Master’s Program at Konstfack
Konstfack, the largest university college of arts, crafts and design in Sweden, was established in 1844. Konstfack’s two-year graduate program unites design, art, crafts, history, theory and criticism in a dialogue with studio and practice-based work. The program leads to a Master of Fine Arts.
The Master’s program offers eight different disciplines called Master’s Groups:
• Art in the Public Realm
• Ceramics and Glass
• Experience Design
• Formgiving Intelligence
• InSpace
• Jewellery + Corpus
• Storytelling
• Textile in the Expanded Field
The Master’s program at Konstfack functions as an exploratory experimental workshop. Our goal is to lead development in the respective disciplines of arts, crafts and design. This is a program that prepares you for both research and professional careers, and provides you with the prerequisites for critical thinking, enabling you to evaluate your own creative work and place it in a meaningful context.
Final date for applications: March 1, 2010
Final date for portfolios: March 10, 2010
For further information please go here.
February 5, 2010
Posted in: NEWS
SOCIAL STREET
The 7th Urban and Landscape Days, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn
April 22-24, 2010
We warmly invite research papers and project presentations to the forthcoming Urban and Landscape Days, to be held in Tallinn, Estonia April 22-24, 2010.
This year theme is ‘social street’. The notion of ‘social street’ is to be interpreted in an open and innovative way.
Questions and sub-themes include:
Participatory and self-building approaches in vitalising streets Urban media, links between virtual and real space Urban design, projects for 21st century street Street and sustainable urban life New uses of urban space Urban conflicts Dérive History of streets Invisible street of infrastructures Spatial configuration and urban morphology Representations of street life in art and literature Methodological developments in urban and spatial analysis Technological and material innovation in street and public space construction
Organising team: Katrin Koov, Panu Lehtovuori, Lilia del Rio, Jüri Soolep
December 28, 2009
Posted in: Research Meetings
Meeting of Teachers in Iceland, January 2010
4TH CIRRUS CONFERENCE 2010 – MEETING OF TEACHERS
ICELAND ACADEMY OF THE ARTS
Thursday January 21st and Friday January 22nd
Reykjavík will host the 4th Meeting of Teachers in January 2010. These meetings have become a regular feature in the activities of Cirrus and are considered valuable contributions to the development of teaching in general and the development of the MA in particular. What is considered of great value with these meetings is the general openness and participation of teachers in the proceedings as opposed to the many organizational meetings that have to be held in networks.
The purpose of the Cirrus Network is to continue a very successful network of higher educational institutions within art and design and architecture initiated in 1990.
The main purpose is to sustain a global powerhouse in design through education and research in the Nordic-Baltic region.
Cirrus runs various intensive programs every year
- A conference on curriculum development within master education.
- Workshops or smaller meetings about specific areas within design, for example service design, social design and research.
- Intensive projects where students and teachers exchange ideas and cooperate on predefined tasks.
- Express mobility for common courses.
Curriculum development conference.
Cirrus runs a curriculum development conference every year. These are described separately in the applications for IP’s, but the objective of these is to stimulate new developments within design such as emerging fields where innovation, social responsibility and new pedagogic methodologies are discussed and tested. These can be conferences, workshops, courses or group exchanges.
It is considered of primary importance to include students in all the meeting points created by the Cirrus Network.
Workshops or smaller meetings.
Many partners in Cirrus run small working group meetings for development of common courses and common timetables. This will take place in the intermittent periods between the larger assemblies and conference and will focus more on master education, research and social responsivity.
Intensive and Development projects.
Partners are creating development projects and intensive courses. These are described in Apenndix and included in budget plan.
Express mobility for common courses.
In the last curriculum development conference it was decided to aim for common courses on the master level where many of the partners adhere to the same week in the semester for opening up opportunities for students to select courses in partner institutions. This model has been run successfully in our partner network KUNO and from that experience Cirrus wants to do the same. The first such express activity is to take place in the spring semester of 2009.
Results
- Closer collaboration within the ‘old’ Nordic countries and the Baltic countries.
- Curriculum development and benchmarking changing the studies in all the partner institutions.
- Establishment of common courses within design, both on BA and MA level.
- Express mobility. Develop short term student exchange in connection with common courses run simultaneously in the partner institutions.
- Establishment of closer collaboration of the design innovation centers that the partner institutes run.
- A development of research into one common design innovation policy for the Nordic-Baltic region.
November 26, 2009
Posted in: Call for meetings, TEACHERS CONFERENCES
Intensive Course, Helsinki, Stockholm and Bergen
The schools in Helsinki, Bergen and Stockholm have run a successive intensive course (IC) in drawing. The aims of the course were: ” To concentrate on drawing as tool for visual thinking. Special focus on graphic designers and photographers and how praxis of drawing changes their working methods and processes as well as their visual thinking. The course was a continuation of an earlier course when in spring 2007, 15 students from Konstfack, from Graphic Design and Illustration program and Fine Art program were in Helsinki 8th – 10th of May. Junior lecturers Anita Malmquist and Chunlee WanGurt from Fine Art and Professor in Illustration Andreas Berg were with them.
The objectives were stipulated as follows:
- Can you have drawing as a method in your artistic process?
- Can you travel in your memory by help of drawing?
- Can you think by drawing or do you have to think !rst before drawing or afterwards when you have !nished your drawing?
The program for the Intensive Course was as follows:
1. Tuesday 14th of April
Draw an important place ( drawing by memory) Try to show the place to
people who haven’t been there. Use different projections, not only central
perspective.
2. Wednesday 15th of April
Draw an important happening in your life.
3. Thursday 16th of April
Draw a dream! A dream you have dreamt or a dream you would like to come
true
4. Friday 17th of April
Continue one of those you started earlier ( Masters students from Stockholm
have another course)
5. Saturday 18th of April
Excursion
And here is a report from the organizer about what happened:
The Second Day Easter we Finns met at the Railway Station in Helsinki at quarter to three in the afternoon. We were seven with two bicycles. We arrived to Turku at 17 where we looked at Marja Nurminen’s solo exhibition at Galleria Nefret. After that we ate our first dinner together in Nepalese Restaurant Sikhar. We took a train to Turku harbour and started our journey to Stockholm.
At 6. 30 we arrived to my former hometown and we waited for the boys with bikes and finally I called them. The first accident has happened to Antti, who fell over. He could take himself to the hospital after we had checked us in the hotel.
After first hour Elisabet Sagefors came and she bought material and showed a very simple ways to draw with graphite and use white paint as eraser. This was a concrete way for the students to get started: draw an important place (drawing from memory) – try to show the place to people who haven’t been there; use different projections, not just central perspective, was the task for the first day. At four o’clock we all went to Museum of Modern Art to see Japanese artist Tabaimo’s exhibition. Her animations are built on drawing and they show places and personal experiences the way our workshop was planned to do, too. We saw also Andreas Gursky’s works from 1980-2008 in a big exhibition. After these exhibitions we also looked at the marvelous permanent collections at Museum of Modern Art.
On Wednesday we started at 9 am with the David Hockney at the Tate video where he showed his exhibition and specially one painting of his friends house and a way to this house, too. This painting was also a map at the same time. After that we started a new task: draw an important event in your life!
On Thursday, I showed slides by Jockum Nordström, Helene Billgren, Carin Ellberg, Julie Roberts, Ann Wåhlander, Johan Zetterqvist, Jens Fänge, Klara Kristallova, Roger Andersson, Lars Arrhenius, Gunilla Klingberg, Niklas Eneblom and some of my own work relevant to the workshop assignments. On Friday at four o’clock, some brave students took on the possibility to go and see Nationalmuseum and the exhibition The Pre-Raphaelites. In that exhibition students were especially interested in photographer Tom Hunter’s work.
On Friday Kate Madsen had a lecture on street art and drawing from the digital point of view. Before lunch, students could continue their work and then we hung all drawings on the walls. We drew lots on who would give constructive feedback to whom. At the lunch we teachers decided that we shouldn´t talk so much and we really didn´t need to do that because students gave very good feedback to each other.
On Saturday we made a walk around galleries in Stockholm. We started at Gallery Magnus Karlsson and saw Roger Anderssons and Lars Arrhenius exhibition, at Olsson Gallery we saw Lars Olof Loelds exhibition. We went also to The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and saw exhibition of Suzanne Nessim, Karin Granqvist and Martin Åhlund. Afterwards, we took underground to Östermalm and went Gallery Niklas Belenius to see Monica Hölls Exhibition called Crazy Drawing Room. We continued to Gallery Roger Björkholmen to see Thomas Elofssons exhibition. At Gallery Lars Bohman we saw Jussi Niva’s paintings. Helene Billgrens drawings we could see at Angelika Knäpper Gallery, at Crystal Palace we could take part of Catti Brandelius feministic silk-screens. At Alp gallery Peter Bergman we saw fantastic pumpkin made by Roland Persson and some paintings by Martin Åhlund. And because this wasn´t enough we took one gallery house and could see more exhibitions. At Gallery Andersson Sandström we saw Allison Gildersleeves painting. At Flach and Thulin we were fascinated by Kristina Bengths watercolours. At Andréhn-Sciptjenko we saw Jacob Dahlgren´s works. At Nordenhake we didn´t like Scott Olson´s exhibition at all. At Brändström we saw Thomas Sandells and Jakob Ojanen`s exhibitions. This was guite a heavy package of Art but the weather was nice and we saw one magnolia in full flower.
October 28, 2009
Posted in: COURSE REPORTS
Meetings in Copenhagen Sept. 16th – 18th 2009
The annual network meetings for heads of schools and coordinators in the Cirrus Network will take place in Copenhagen in September. The meeting is hosted by The Danish Design School,
Strandboulevarden 47, 2100 Copenhagen Ø, DK
Wednesday 16th of September, evening program
Informal gathering from 19.30 o’clock at Republic, Blegdammens stjerne, Blegdamsvej 70, Copenhagen Ø
Blegdammens Stjerne is a bistro that serves nice food and drinks. Representatives from The Danish Design School will be present to welcome you.
Thursday 17th of September, day and evening programme
8.00-9.00 - Registration and coffee in the library at The Danish Design School
9.00 – 9.45 - Welcome by Dori Gislasson, Dean at Oslo National Academy of the Arts followed by a Welcome by Rector Peter Bysted at the Danish Design School. Short presentation of current and near future developments including the coming merger between the Danish Design School and the School of Architecture, in room xxx.
9.45 – 10-15 - Presentation by Head of Research Anne Louise Sommer of the Design School research programme and how it is integrated in the in the current curriculum.
10.15 – 10.45 - Coffee, water, fruit, rolls
10.45 – 13.30 - Bus drive to Holmen, Copenhagen Harbour, presentation of our future school location and lunch at the canteen of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, School of Architecture.
13.30-15.00 parallel sessions
A: MA collaboration continued, can we confirm plans for the coming study year/ chaired by: Head of Center for Communication Design Tine Kjølsen
B: Research and design integration and collective development – how can we mutually benefit in the future/ chaired by Head of Research Anne Louise Sommer and Head of Center for Industrial design and center for Fashion and textile
C: Internship culture now and in the future, should it be mandatory and what do we and the students gain by it?/ chaired by Rector Peter Bysted
15.30 – 21.30 - Bus drive to Louisiana, Museum of Modern Art. Tour of the newly opened exhibition “The world is yours”. Dinner at 18.00 at the museums café. Afterwards it is possible to see other current exhibitions before the bus drives back to Copenhagen at 21.30.
Friday 18th of September, day programme
9.00 – 10.00 - Separate meetings for rectors, heads, and coordinators. The programme for the Heads´ meeting will be a presentation of the summaries of the parallel sessions from Thursday afternoon and suggestions to next steps in the Nordic collaboration.
10.00 – 10.30 - Coffee, water, fruits and rolls
10.30 – 12.00 - Dori Gislason presents the new website and presents administrative challenges for the collaboration.
12.00 Farewell
August 16, 2009
Tags: architecture, copenhagen, design, nordic-baltic Posted in: ADMINISTRATION, Reeports from Meetings of Heads, Reports from meetings of coordinators
Service Design Conference in Oslo
The first Nordic Service Design Conference will be held in Olso School of Architecture and Design. The conference is supported by the Cirrus Network.
Oslo 24th – 26th November 2009.
Here is the Conference Site For Enrolling
Service Design delivers innovation through the holistic design of customer experiences that occur across touch-points and over time. It brings a different perspective to established service disciplines such as service management and service innovation, and both complements and catalyzes them.
August 16, 2009
Tags: design, Oslo, Service Design Posted in: RESEARCH ACTIVITIES, Research Meetings
Nordic Design Research Conferences, Engaging Artifacts Oslo 2009
Cirrus member school The Oslo School of Architecture and Design 30. Aug.-1. Sep.
Here is a link to the conference website
Design research aims to provide new insights to the ways in which we understand – and do – design. The conference invites contributions from researchers in universities, design schools and industry who share an interest in understanding and developing design as a trans-disciplinary practice that is always in the making. The scope of the conference reaches beyond the traditional design disciplines and includes other research areas with mutual interest in design research and engaging artefacts. NORDES ‘09 directs its interest towards the diversity, challenges and emerging practices and understandings of design. The conference theme reflects a range of issues that characterize design and design research today.
Confronted with the increasingly complex problems of our times, design should engage in new ways of thinking. Design objects are characterized by their form, aesthetics, functionality, materials as well as social, political and cultural codings. How do and might designers, and educators and researchers of design respond to these different perspectives in design? How can designers respond to the life cycle of artefacts? How can designers be better at designing artefacts for performability and sustainability? How do designers and researchers develop ways of researching knowledges, skills, theories, methods, intuition and passion in design practices?
In addressing these many issues, the Engaging Artefacts conference includes the following themes:
• Consumption: We invite critical perspectives on the increasing number and diversity of artefacts and their creative design but also use and abuse in global economy
• Production: Critical perspectives on the complexity, interrelations and consequences of production
• Technology: new forms given by new materials – and new materials developed to enable new forms
• Interactivity: performance and system oriented thinking regarding the interaction between artefacts, material systems, environments and users
• Politics: the role of artefacts in shaping alternative futures especially addressing accessibility, sustainability, poverty and democracy
So as to fully take up the theme Engaging Artefacts, we invite a range of contributions: full research papers, presentations of design cases, artefacts for exhibition, tutorials and workshops. We welcome the many voices of design and design research ⎯ including perspectives ranging from the humanities to physics, from ethnography to art, from engineering to marketing. Papers may cover experimental and exploratory research approaches to design and the production of knowledge. Papers may also be based on historical, histographical, cultural or philosophical studies that hold qualified contributions to the field in terms of insights, concepts and ideas. Submitted contributions are subject to an anonymous peer-review process. Accepted contributions will be published electronically on the conference website prior to the conference and in the conference proceedings.
July 27, 2009
Tags: design, nordic, research Posted in: RESEARCH ACTIVITIES, Research Meetings









