This event will be the last step in the UAL Cultures of Resilience (CoR) project and the first step in a new line of art and design research, which will hopefully continue.

This seminar will focus on collective reflection, to discuss how in the present context, art and design is collaborating to (re)build communities-in-place.

In the framework of the CoR project we have observed that, consciously or not, art and design brings people together in special ways, instigating social assemblies that foster new social connections and collaborations

The purpose of this seminar is to ask what kind of social forms is art and design helping to generate?

What will happen?

To answer this question, the afternoon will be divided into three sessions. The discussion in each one will be triggered by a set of short vignettes in which CoR participants will very briefly revisit a specific magic moment of encounter during their project that was pivotal in the forming of a new connection between one person and another or between people and a place.

Why attend?

There are two mainstream trends that currently are weakening communities-in-place: that of a hyper-individualised, delocalised society; and that of the notion of going back to the communities and places of the past.

This event will present examples of art and design contributions to processes of community building that can counter these trends and help enable conditions for the kind of encounters that evolve towards new social forms.

We hope you can make it.

Ezio Manzini and Nick Bell

UAL Chairs of Design for Social Innovation, and Communication Design