NCSU Graduate Syposium, 2010

The NC State Graduate Symposium planning is well under way and I’m excited about the topic and the contributions. We got 20+ proposals, which is H-U-G-E and I think speaks to the interest and relevance of the topic. Below is the abstract and visuals. I’m on the design team and I’m really excited for what has been produced. We’ve all sort of had a hand in it and I think it’s been a really honestly collaborative (i’m saying it and sticking to it) experience.

Deadline Extended Until 11/06/09:

The NC State Master of Graphic Design Candidates are in the process of planning a graduate symposium and we want to hear what you have to say.

The time: January 22–23, 2010

The place: College of Design at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina

The topic: the rhetoric of authenticity within design practices and for community experience

We invite you to submit your works in progress, your conversation starters, your ideas in formation, your past works and your ongoing investigations—pretty much anything that is relevant and will add value to the conversation (or start a debate!).

This symposium is for current and recent graduate students, so bring the discussions you are having in your studios, classrooms, and blogs. We want to know what you’re thinking and talking about. This is an opportunity for those of us who are engaged in the graduate experience to have an open conversation—to get together in the same room and talk about what matters to us.

Design anthropologist Dori Tunstall describes five requisites of communities: commonality in terms of historic consciousness, life goals, organizational structures, relationships, and conceptions of individual agency. Can considering how the rhetoric of authenticity relates to these defining characteristics of communities help identify points of engagement with complex and discriminating audiences?

This symposium will explore the rhetoric of authenticity within design practices and for community experience. We will confront provocative issues relating to designers’ roles and responsibilities to communities and the individuals who comprise them. Join us in this dialogue.

How can we anticipate the ways in which our designs will be read by community members?

How can we design to empower community audiences in ways that increase their agency and nurture their identities?

What does it mean to appreciate the power of the rhetoric of authenticity in our design practices and considerations of community?

How might social, political, and economic constructs influence perceptions of authenticity in design?

What constitutes authentic experience, relative to design?

Coming soon: additional information and our official symposium website.

Brought to you by Grad Students: Brooke Chornyak, Cady Bean-Smith, Caroline Maxcy Prietz, Dan McCafferty, Kelly Bailey, Lauren Waugh, Liese Zahabi, Lincoln Hancock, Rebecca Knowe, Ryan Gottfried, Samyul Kim, Sidney Fritts, Tania Allen, TJ Blanchflower, Tony Fugolo, Gary Dickson, David Raymond, and Laura Rodriguez. Plus Denise Gonzales Crisp, Graduate Symposium Advisor; Meredith Davis, Director of the MGD Graduate Program; and Santiago Piedrafita, Head, Graphic Design and Industrial Design Department.

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