Design for Cultural Commons - PG Dip drafted

Program Overview

Why study this course?

“The Commons” as a field of study is considered to offer a solution to current problems of social and economic inequality. If you’re interested in developing methods to instigate power shifts and uncovering the impacts of the discourse around Commons, this course will provide you with the context and skills to do just that.

This postgraduate diploma offers a unique opportunity to rigorously interrogate new forms of practice in line with Commons principles. You’ll challenge unequal power relations, question planetary resource extraction and tackle the inequalities of market-focussed capitalism. With modules covering the history and theory of the Commons, Commoning practice and enacting the Commons, this course will put you well on the path to developing financially stable practices for delivering ethical services and products with impact on socio-political change. Your project module in particular will help you to learn and understand appropriate methods for projects specifically aimed at making counter culture, social transformation and new models of doing and acting in the city.

Program Outline

More about this course

This course takes place part-time over the course of one year. Whether you’re already involved in socio-political art, architecture or design practice, or looking to enter the field, this PG Dip course will facilitate careers development or careers realignment. The connection between history and theory and practice will complement  your own experiences, in turn providing a foundation for your future practice.

You may be:

Your modules will help you to situate your career in organisations that you develop. Moreover, the knowledge gained can be used as a way to develop social and ecological programs within existing institutions.

Most of our students are mid-career practitioners looking to change the direction of their career, often finding their current work environment at odds with their beliefs and interests. If you are looking to embark on new career paths working with communities and in the public sector, the course material will help you to mediate between these worlds and learn best practices for working with communities. The course’s methodology will support you to undertake mapping exercises based on your skills, career path and interests. In turn you'll work to draw out a unique new organisational model tailored to your passion, analysing your needs against the modern macro-political context.

In this supportive, mentoring environment, your modules will act as laboratories for innovating fair, ecological and democratic forms of cultural practice relevant to the networked, decentralised and interconnected (glocal) world of tomorrow.

This PG Dip qualification can also support the development of Mphil and Phd proposals if you are keen to pursue a further qualification.

This course has formal partnerships with the Design Museum, Tate Modern (Tate Exchange) and Design Exchange Magazine, as well as other informal partnerships with numerous community organisations, local government agencies/ authorities and charities.

Assessment

You’ll be assessed through a written essay, a public talk, coursework and a presentation.

Modular structure

The modules listed below are for the academic year 2022/23 and represent the course modules at this time. Modules and module details (including, but not limited to, location and time) are subject to change over time.

Year 1 modules include:

This module is practice-based and vocational as well as creative and innovative in developing new forms of practice. It will enable students to either develop a fully operational practice initiative within the discourse of commons or develop an imaginary one using real practice models. The module has components in form of lectures and seminars and one to one design tutorials where the concepts and ideas of the practice are formed. Within tutorials students discuss the role of partnerships, collaboration and co-production and their relationship to supporting institutions. Students will be encouraged to publicly present their practice in real-life scenarios. The course will already have key institutional partners which may not be obviously commons but will act as support to the development of the students’ ‘Commons’ practices/ initiatives.

The module aims to give students the power to imagine or create a practice within which to initiate their own commons projects, developing appropriate practice models based on the country and context in which they will be located. Students will devise appropriate practice policies related to equality, ethics and inclusivity and learn fund-raising skills. Students will gain a critical understanding of the role and position of their practice within the field of commons and as part of a larger global network. They will develop skills for co-operative and collaborative working and designing which sit within the commons discourse; and develop models to assess impact via monitoring and evaluation methods.

This module sets the context, both theoretical and practical, around the commons discourse. It will cover its historical context and points of origin, towards its current manifestation and global movement. The module will comprise lectures by practitioners in the field as well as reading seminars covering a range of themes on cultural, knowledge, urban, digital, and economic commons. The students will become familiar with similar parallel discourses such as peer-to-peer models of creating common goods as well as cooperatives. The module aims to cultivate a solid ground for the students to develop their future practice. It enables students to develop critical thinking essential in development of such an emerging field. Students will be able to study alongside their peers on related courses and engage in productive discussion, debate and at times collaboration.

This module currently runs:

The module builds on the students’ draft brief developed in the MA’s core module: History and Theory of Commons. This module supports students to develop their brief further into a rigorous project proposal. The project will be required to be live in its nature and embedded in a real context. This context can be institutions, other initiatives or practices, factories or places of cultural production, banks, farms and any other live context the students chose. The year long project will develop students’ skills to co-produce their projects, critically assess individual and collective authorships, explore critical approaches to design and its ethics as well as the meaning of the work and its materiality.

The aim of the module is to enable students to have a high quality project developed within the discourse of the commons which enables them to revisit or continue following their MA qualification.

Where this course can take you

This course can help you to gain a new or higher position in an existing job or help you set up an organisation if you want to start your own practice. You’ll rigorously and factually develop your future career with confidence and support from the expertise of lecturers, practitioners and academics on the course.