DISARMING DESIGN MASTERS

MASTERS PROGRAMME SANDBERG INSTITUUT AMSTERDAM 2020–2022

Disarming Design is a temporary masters programme at the Sandberg Instituut committed to cooking, making, weaving, screening, giving, talking, playing, mapping, workshopping, sensing, celebrating, reclaiming, documenting, forming, witnessing, juxtaposing, tripping, translating, transposing, sculpting, publishing and unfolding.

‘Disarming’ positions design as a cultural tool to oppose authority, and create knowledge with affection, desire and imagination. The curriculum aims to question, challenge and locate the emancipatory potential of design and other organisational art forms. We uphold artistic practices that deal with conditions of anti-coloniality, activism and entangled histories, and operate at the intersection of crafts, language, architecture, community, politics and translation.

The programme focuses on the artistic work of the participants in finding their own methods, language and tools, in addition to participative projects brought in by the team and institute. It is set up as a studio-space led programme where students get feedback by peers and tutors on their research, projects and practice. The curriculum has an open structure and gets its final shape in response to the different initiatives, collaborations and developments.

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The first year generated a cross-pollination of ideas and initiatives, alongside questioning the conditions in which the work and programme existed. Attention was on way-finding, experimenting with new platforms, synchronizing languages and responding to changing and challenging conditions. We moved as a department to an external self-runned location. Students campaigned for Palestinian rights and wrote an open letter to the board asking for a public statement to speak out against violence and oppression, and condemn all actions that violate human rights.

The second year started with an exhibition ‘Disclosing Discomforts’ that sketched research through action, participation, performance and installation. The research further deepened through and in the essay that each wrote. All together leading to experimental practices that can imagine and enact ways of being together otherwise.

The programme derived from the long-term collaboration between the Design Department at the Sandberg Instituut and the design platform ‘Disarming Design from Palestine’ – but operates independently.

More information

Disarm.design, website made by Disarming Design participants, at the momentum which started with social media documentation of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem (Sheik Jarrah) which has catalyzed a historical moment, ripe for transformation – may 2021.

TypeLab Sandberg, represented by Mohamed Gaber @gue3bara and Farah Fayyad @farahfayyad , stands against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the violent settler colonial state of Israel: “We are witnessing an attempted genocide happening in real time. We invite all our workshop participants and followers to make a free lettering of the word Palestine – فلسطين. “

DIWAN talks: Institutional Solidarity
Friday, May 28, 2021 / 18.30 – 20.30 CEST, Photo: Augustina Woodgate
The students hosted DIWAN for a conversation that responds and reflects on institutional solidarity, especially as it has come into focus during the last weeks due to the escalating violence against the Palestinian people. They opened up their space across radio waves and digital channels with students, artists, and cultural practitioners—independent as well as institutional workers. The event was moderated by members of DIWAN, PUB Radio, and Sandberg students.