BIG THINGS

At the last GDEN event Small Things, we explored the everyday steps and interventions that help us care for ourselves and our students: from shaping learning environments to self-reflective diagramming, community soup-making, and establishing micro-boundaries.

Now, as pressures across UK Higher Education continue to intensify, we’re turning our attention to the BIG THINGS that are impacting and reshaping graphic design education. Join us in January for a day of workshops and talks to ask: can we stay critical, connected, and hopeful in the face of substantial challenges across the sector, and seismic shifts in technology?

More information on speakers and programme coming soon. Please see the draft schedule below. If you are interested in contributing specifically to any of the themes, please get in touch – we are finalising the format of each session.

Draft Schedule:

11:00–11:30 Arrival

11:30–13:00 TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES
AI and Automation. Technology’s ethical, environmental, and pedagogical implications. Who controls the tools, what are their impacts and what gets left behind?

13:00–14:00 Potluck Lunch

14:00–15:30 SYSTEMS & SECTORS
Policy shifts and precarity in design education, national representation and sector health. Where does graphic design education sit in the wider landscape of HE and the ‘creative industries’?

15:30–16:30 HOPE
What opportunities for active hope or positive transition exist, despite (or because of) these conditions? How might we define our hopes for the future, and work towards them together, within/across/against our different institutions?

16:30–17:30 – Closing and Social

Please get in touch with us via email if you want to come but cannot pay for your travel costs: graphicdesigneducatorsnetwork@gmail.com.