BlogLESS: Talk to me about why the program was founded?
ZD: The reason for founding the MFA in Collaborative Design is summed up nicely by Peter Schoonmaker of Illahee, one of the mentors in the program. His Twitter bio says “Seeking non-trivial solutions to wicked problems.” I think there is a pretty clear recognition in the world of design that the wicked problems facing the planet require an approach that works between and even transcends disciplines and takes into account the needs and desires of many more human and non-human actors than are currently consulted by designers.
These ideas and the need for this program have been percolating over the last five years at PNCA, and finally became a reality this year. I am very excited to be part of a program that allows students create work with native wetland species as their primary clients! What do the wetland plants want, and how do we make these designs viable and integrated? What other stakeholders need to be taken into account?
BlogLESS: Any major inspirations for the program?
ZD: Buckminster Fuller continues to be an inspiration, and his body of work has shown the need for more expert generalists. However, many attempts at utilizing ideas from systems thinking in design have often manifested in hubristic, techno-utopic and top-down projects such as Bruce Mau’s Massive Change exhibition, which looked like an industry trade show and Shoji Shodao & Bucky’s hilarious and provocative design fiction for a dome over New York.
One way Collaborative Design distinguishes itself from this kind of work is by hopefully remaining humble, firmly placing its process at the service of very specific communities, clients and concerns, becoming excellent listeners and facilitators, while keeping an eye on the larger picture. Tad Hirsch and Carl DiSalvo are both inspirations when it comes to contestational design & public design respectively and are both mentors for our Summer Institute in Portland, OR. Both of their current practices revolve around iterative engagements with very specific sets of concerns (water issues, local sustainable food systems). I look forward to learning more about the successes and challenges of their recent work in August. Sometimes the outcomes of these practices do not look like what has traditionally been called “design”. Interestingly, one of the most “insider” figures in design, Paola Antonelli, curator at MoMA, has made room even in the world of “high” design to open up what is possibly accepted as design.
BlogLESS: Why now and why Portland?
ZD: The explosion of networked forms of peer production have challenged many of the norms around authorship and individuality in art & design. I think there was also a need to provide a rigorous educational space for mentors and students to experiment with pedagogy, institutional structure, means of assessment and getting out of the ivory tower and into the world, but being able to step back and assess those interactions reflexively and critically. PNCA and Portland are known for this kind of openness to experimentation and risk taking, so I think it is the perfect place to launch this kind of program now. It is interesting that so many of the educational and non-profit and plain non-traditional institutions in Portland see the city and the region as a lab that embraces experimentation, and I think this kind of intimate dialogue between institutions, individuals and governance in the Portland area will continue to be vital.
I take inspiration from the work that Sara Wylie, (another Summer Institute mentor), and peers, are doing with Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (PLOTS), in creating a rich design ecology. Here are a set of artifacts, that people can hack together using consumer products, that allow them to be active citizen scientists. The challenge for these kinds of practices is maintaining the ties between people, places and things over time. I look forward to hearing about this project, and its decentralized organizational approach as well.
BlogLESS: So, as you know, our big focus here at BlogLESS is the intersection of design & ethics. Since many of the projects students will address and examine involve tough social and cultural applications of design, l’m curious to hear how design ethics plays in to the programs curriculum and study.
ZD: Design ethics is something we will revisit a number of times throughout the program. I think issues of power, privilege and public need to be addressed head on and often. If designers are going to be working as advocates for specific communities they need to revisit the success and failures of community based practices in history. If students are interested in engaging profit-maximizing institutions or the State with the intention of making positive gestures through institutional experimentation they need to figure out what their engagement will look like and where they will participate and where they will not. The graduate seminar is a place where students discuss readings, case studies and examples from their own practice relating to design ethics.
The field traditionally called “Design” has been in crisis for a while now. In its current phase of redefinition it is a perfect time to revisit foundational principles, or boldly propose novel experiments and carve out new possibilities of what Design can be. Many of the mentors in our studio labs are currently working on specific thorny issues, with a particular community or generating novel design practices that are uncharted. The experiences and ethical questions they will bring to the table for students should prove to be a fruitful exchange. As design is being reinvented it is pretty clear that the entire global economy, its reliance on fossil fuel inputs, and its inability to take into account “externalities” needs to be totally rethought, and redesigned. This will be a collaborative process, and it will require as many anomalous experiments as humans can muster. Hopefully this program is a small part of that movement.
The top 11 Books might be an interesting reading list although I think it is less Design Ethics focused than many of our essay-based readings.
BlogLESS: Where can we learn more about the program?
ZD: People can get in touch with me directly at zdenfeld [at] pnca.edu or if they want to find out more about the program they can visit the program site, or email admissions [at] pnca.edu. I have tried to highlight some of the more interesting projects, practices and ideas I have seen at our Tumblr blog.
Zack Denfeld has an MFA from the University of Michigan, School of Art & Design and a BA from Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Public Affairs. From 2006 – 2011 he worked in Bangalore, India at a Design Innovation Firm, an Art School and a Think Tank. Currently he is helping to run the Center for Genomic Gastronomy and teaches at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR.
