Week 5: We Werk Together: Collaborative Design
“Collaboration is the answer, what is the question?”
This week was all about the different creative groups that all collaborate in creating and designing. Andy curated a handful of these creative collaborators and showcased them in class. Below are a few of these groups and their works that stood out to me.
Abake are a transdisciplinary graphic design collective. Much of their work concentrates on the social aspect of design and the strength that collaboration can bring to a project. One of their installations, Limb Typography (shown above), allows participants to put their hands through a black background and work together to make type.
Andrea Crews is a creative agency and fashion house that create public artworks and performances. They have a strong belief in using their art as a means of activism and collaborate with many other collectives and brands.
Based in St Petersburg, Russia, Chto Delat is a collective of artists, critics, philosophers and writers with a goal of merging political theory, art, and activism.
Dearraindrop is a multimedia artists collective that produce these psychedelic pieces as well as art projections, releasing music and producing music videos.
DIS Magazine is a multimedia collective and a meta commercial enterprise with a particular interest in design critique. They examine art, fashion, music and culture, constructing and supporting new creative practices.
Friendswithyou is a Los Angeles based art collective seeking to “redesign spirituality, rituals, and religious acts for modern day usage and connectivity”. They began by creating soft sculptures as a means to spread more accessible art like plush and wood toys, as well as immersive art installations, fine art works including sculpture and painting, and are best known for their public art spectacles such as large-scale art installations, playgrounds, and performance pieces.
This week’s session gave a me a lot of insight to the world of art and design collectives and really opened my eyes to what collaborative creative groups can offer the world.
It also emphasised to me this growing trend of mixing and mingling with different types of creatives to work together on projects that has input from writers to artists and designers.
I’m beginning to understand that maybe the future of design and creative endeavours aren’t in these silos where everyone has a label or categorisation of their role and what they do. It seems to me that being a creative can now open you up to different fields and interests working together with all sorts of people to create works and projects.
I think I’ve been too focused on my individual skills as a designer and what I want my own career to look like and hadn’t really thought about how designing and working collaboratively in a collective could be an option in the future.
