Desire & Design

Fall Session | September 1 – November 29, 2015

This Fall, we invite you to join us for Desire & Design, a 12 week session in Urbana, Illinois.

Some acute social problems at first glance seem simple to understand, but on closer look reveal their social complexity. Such problems may then appear slippery, circular, unsolvable–and even the words available to describe these problems become problematic.

The Fall program is for those people, like ourselves, who feel ‘stuck’ in un-caring systems, and who want time, tools and new ideas to figure out ‘what next’.

In this three month session, we’ll focus on desire and design–an education not only in knowing but in desiring and doing. Starting from where you are at, the focus is on your articulation and creation of projects of contemporary relevance.

SDAS class session at Gesundheit WVA

The Herbert Brun House in Urbana Illinois

In order to develop our multiple intelligences, the session will draw on insights and practices from experimental composition, care theory, permaculture, epic theater, poetry, dance, 2-and-3-dimensional art, story-telling, critical theory, systems theory and cybernetics. We’ll turn to the arts, not just for entertainment and soothing, but also for giving us fresh ways of thinking and the spirit of experiment. We turn to design, not just for creating beautiful things, but for helping us to formulate our problems and desires and work mindfully on solutions.

Champaign Urbana Independent Media Center

Situated at the Herbert Brün House and at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, the session combines seminar, group work, composition lessons. We’ll interact with several ongoing performance projects, civic campaigns and community organizing efforts.

CLASSES & EVENTS

Interdependent Film Festival–WE MAKE MOVIES!!! September 4-6 2015, Champaign-Urbana Independent Media Center. Film-making is an Interdependent process, and mainly depends on teamwork. Bring a simple idea from an inner universe, and over three days, work with others to turn it into a film. Yes we can!

Design Fundamentals– a weekly plenary for all participants in the school community, where beginning and advanced design tools from cybernetics, systems theory, composition, permaculture, care theory are taught and discussed. (Herbert reframed the word ‘fundamentals’ to ‘fun-for-da-mentals!’) Entailment structures will be created, to show how design concepts form relations, families, networks.

Entailment Structure of Ivan Illich, DeSchooling

Clowning and Caring

Clowning and Caring– a monthly exploration of clowning in a nursing home, with Patch Adams MD and local high school students. Clowning unravels power imbalances through love, and re-imagines the relationships between strength and vulnerability. Caring apprentices us to each other as listeners and respondents.

Dacha, Gesundheit Institute, West Virginia

Social Medicine Symposium, Oct. 1-4, Gesundheit Institute Hillsboro West Virginia

 “Wellness is not an individual project. It is a communal project”—Social Medicine Handbook.

SDaS Fall participants will take a road trip to West Virginia for the Social Medicine Symposium! Gesundheit and SDaS are offering a four-day intensive looking at the impacts of social context on health, disease, and the practice of medicine.

Composition Project 2014, Unrequited

Design, Composition, Performance

Starting from where you are at, each SDaS participant will work with a composer/performer teacher to articulate and create a project of contemporary relevance to you, to us, to it.

LOGISTICS

Can I get credit for this work with my home university?

We can work with you and your home university to see if our program can be considered a for-credit program.

Is there a cost to this program?

Yes.  We intend to offer the presenters an honorarium for their work. The cost is $1800 for three months of participation. If this amount is prohibitive to your participation, then arrange with us an amount that is possible for you.

Housing

Our staff can assist you in finding sub-lease housing options in Urbana or Champaign, Illinois. Please email us to arrange.

How do I pay?

You may pay online via secure paypal account below or mail a check payable to School for Designing a Society to 122 Franklin St Urbana, IL 61801