Artistic Identity Exploration

Danielle Harris is a lecturer in accessory design and project mentoring in the Bachelor's program and the Master's Studio in Fashion Design at HGK FHNW. She understands design as a constructive interface that connects and drives sustainable processes. She engages with cultural resources and techniques and initiates her own design and manufacturing processes that playfully, experimentally, and interdisciplinary critically question fashion and expand it as a medium for expression, embodiment, and sociability in design practice. Her goal is to promote a material, hierarchy-free dialogue with the Other.

Martina Siegwolf works as a lecturer in arts education and diversity ambassador at HGK FHNW. After studying art history, ethnology, history, and gaining several years of teaching experience at various levels in different schools, she led the Education and Outreach Department at the Kunstmuseum Basel, Contemporary Art. She curated exhibitions, initiated art and education projects in the performative, artistic, social, and activist fields, and developed various formats. She has been actively involved with Werkraum Warteck pp since its inception. She has been practicing social plastic processes and artistic design activities and empowerment through education with diverse individuals in various constellations for many years. In 2007, she was honored with the Museumsstern for her work with young people at the UPK Museum.

The continuing education programme of the Institute of Arts and Design Education aims to broaden participants’ perspective of their own artistic work and shared creative endeavours with others. Participants will be introduced to creative educational strategies, and acquire the ability to make creative debates effective for social processes. Both the weeklong continuing education courses and the optional one-on-one coaching sessions integrate methods from the fields of education, the fine arts, arts education, performance and other participatory practices. The improvement of artistic, creative and communication skills can help pave the way for more equal opportunities. Social inclusion, as one of the main conditions of equal opportunities, requires good communication and cultural competences – and it is these competences that artistic and creative educational strategies can do an excellent job at cultivating. By strengthening artistic and creative competences, we not only increase the realms of possibility for design, but also for communication, social interactions, the strengthening of social structures, personal expression and the experience of self-efficacy.

In this format, participants experience artistic and cultural design processes, tonality and performance, and learn open, experimental approaches to diversity and inclusion that they can integrate into their work with people. It is about a material, sensual dialogue, about speculative encounters.

Participants:

• acquire the ability to shape artistic and design processes,
• acquire skills for competent handling of various methods of art and design communication,
• learn to initiate engagements with design processes in social contexts through artistic communication strategies,
• gain experience in their own artistic expressions,
• deepen their knowledge of various communicative competencies,
• expand professional knowledge and skills in expressive and design methods,
• acquire know-how about the connection between art, education, and diverse target groups,
• acquire the competence to question aesthetic habits and social processes,
• gain the ability to develop new ideas with the knowledge of artistic communication strategies,
• gain experience in integrating artistic and cultural processes as open and experimental processes into their work,
• gain experience in applying artistic communication methods in psychosocial practice.

Teachers, Artists, Social Workers; creative, critical and curious human beings

Modules and workshops for a total of 10 ECTS enable registration for the final module with integrated certificate thesis. The graduates are individually supervised by Prof. Dorothée King and her team in 5 individual coaching sessions. Upon successful completion, participants receive the Certificate of Advanced Studies CAS HGK FHNW "Artistic Literacy".

Terms of participation (PDF)
Information on continuing education FHNW (fhnw.ch/DE)
Continuing education regulations of the universities FHNW (fhnw.ch/DE)