News

Designer and educator Anja Groten publicly defends the research project entitled 'Figuring Things Out Together: On the Relationship Between Design and Collective Practice'. On 24 November at 13.45, Groten will defend her dissertation in the Academy Building of Leiden University. From 24 until 27 November, she will present her artistic work in the form of an on and offline publication, an accompanying installation, and a workshop program at Page Not Found in The Hague.

Anja Groten investigates matters of collectivity, drawing from the experience of working with the Amsterdam-based collective Hackers & Designers (H&D)*.

The main thesis of Groten’s research is that conventional design vocabularies cannot sufficiently express and account for collectivities’ resistance to fixation and stabilization. According to Anja Groten, collective design challenges notions of individual authorship, differentiations between disciplines, product and process, user and maker, friendship, and work relations. While collectives not only shape particular affiliations, design approaches, and aesthetics, they also require perspectives on working and designing together that resist a progress-based understanding of a design process.

Groten's published 'First, Then…Repeat.' in collaboration with the Hackers & Designers collective. The publication is presented at Page Not Found from 24 – 27 November, accompanied by a book presentation and a workshop program.

PUBLIC DEFENSE ANJA GROTEN
24 November 2022 at 13.45
Senate Chamber
Academy Building, Leiden University
Rapenburg 73, Leiden

SUPERVISORS
Prof. dr. Janneke Wesseling, Professor Emeritus in Practice and Theory of Research in the Visual Arts, Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University
Dr. Florian Cramer, lector in 21st Century Visual Culture, Willem de Kooning Academy
Femke Snelting, artist and designer

BOOK PRESENTATION & WORKSHOPS
First,
Then…
Repeat.
Workshop scripts in practice

24 – 27 November 2022
Page Not Found
Boekhorststraat 126-128, Den Haag

For more information about the public program and workshop sign-ups, please visit the Hackers & Designers website.

*H&D self-organizes educational activities at the intersection of technology, design, and art, and education with a focus on hands-on learning and collaboration between practitioners from different fields. Along with organizing workshops, people involved with H&D produce on and offline publications and build open source tools and platforms.