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Art & Design as an Early Warning System

Hybrid Colloquium|Speculative reflections on reclaiming futures

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Design Research Lab Udk Berlin_Florian Conradi_Michelle Christensen Quadrat ©Design Research Lab Udk Berlin_Florian Conradi_Michelle Christensen

Design Research Lab Udk Berlin_Florian Conradi_Michelle Christensen ©Design Research Lab Udk Berlin_Florian Conradi_Michelle Christensen

Presented by the Design Research Lab in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Toronto. 
 
”I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it”. 
– Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964

The UdK's winter semester series of Virtual Colloquium lectures and practical design experiments --in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Toronto-- will examine the role of art & design as a political and cultural mirror to society: confronting the dominant cultures with complex topics from censorship to global fascism and reclaiming futures; standing up for the underrepresented, as well as bringing attention to new or radical ideas.

Canadian artist Skawennati discusses her work imagining Indigenous future through AR, fashion and more (January 22, 2026). Caitlin Fisher, Director of York University's Immersive Storytelling Lab, examines gendered experiences in virtual spaces (January 15, 2026). Other contributors are art historian Nausikaä El-Mecky (Barcelona), curator Ivica Mitrović (Split), designer Maciej Chmara (Gdansk/Vienna/Berlin), and media theorist Daniel Irrgang (Berlin).

Invited artists, researchers and activists will discuss their research and practice in our lectures and bring examples of works from the field. In the practical prototyping sessions, students will learn about the radical and critical approaches to design and produce rapid prototypes that materialize speculative reflections on the topics discussed. 
The lectures will become available for free online over the winter.

Format: Zoom (online classes) & Design Research Lab at UdK (in-person classes) + museum visits and prototyping sessions for students
 

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Co-chairs: Prof. Dr. Gesche Joost & Žarko Dumičić

Part of the program reOpen Minds: Adapting to the Future. Presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto. Curated by Jutta Brendemühl & Sanjay Khanna. Under the auspices of Prof. Gesche Joost, President of the Goethe-Institut.
 

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