Nikki Juen and Basma Hamdy are two graphic design professors from North America and the Middle East respectively. Despite the distance between them, they are both operating in the spaces between the individual and institution, subject and system, and their practice, in different ways, is concerned with public mass demonstrations but also individual efforts and grass roots protest. They discuss how their approach to design teaching and practice is more concerned with energies over objects, with processes over products, and with legacies over artifacts and how their work moves beyond the four walls of the institution and outside the traditional definitions of design practice into fluid, participatory spaces.
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“Here the discussion is about how form, function, value and meaning retreat from market logic yet transform the behaviour and structure of society or individuals in a global and contemporary manner through the cultures of design and its practices.
Paolo Cardini has orchestrated this observation by highlighting a community of researchers who are studying and applying these themes at the intercontinental level, and with the awe-struck curiosity of children we remain drawn to and pensive before the array of images that illustrate this issue.”
– Flaviani Celaschi