working groups
The Cumulus working groups are member-led initiatives. The groups take many forms – long-established groups who share a common interest meet at the biannual Cumulus conference year-on-year; others exist as one-off groups who wish to discuss a specific topic on a single occasion.
Taking part in a working group can help you to collect and distribute information about members research and academic activities in specific fields.
Below is a list of the confirmed working groups for In this Place:
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contemporary art
The theme for In this Place offers opportunities for explorations of place, of identity, and of memory. We invite participants to the Contemporary Art Working Group to presentations on these topics that relate to contemporary art and its connections with design.
Proposals should present examples of experienced-based education projects exploring specific locations or sites relating to place, identity, or memory. The Contemporary Art Working Group seeks projects that might form collaborations among higher art institutions throughout the Cumulus Organisation.
Proposals should be sent to Ann Albritton, aalbritt@c.ringling.edu by 1 March 2016 to be included in the Contemporary Working Groups sessions.
Contact: Ann Albritton
Email: aalbritt@c.ringling.edu
Institute: Ringling College of Art and Design, USA -
design 4 sustainability
In keeping with the conference, the theme for the working group discussion is centered on creating ecological/sustainable cities with a focus on biomimcry, urban agriculture, urban/social design, industrial ecologies, green roofs and green infrastructure, etc.
Proposal on these topics as well as curriculum and related projects are also welcome. Please send you suggestions and proposal to Tim Rumage.
Contact: Tim Rumage
Email: trumage@c.ringling.edu
Institute: Ringling College of Art and Design, USA -
design and innovation
This Cumulus working group aims to better understand and shape the role of design education to match the future demand of industry to innovative within a rapidly changing global economic environment. The changing nature of Design has gained attention from governments to address structural economic shifts brought upon through global financial challenges. Within this context design has been viewed as a mechanism of building resilience within a national economy by driving innovation, productivity improvements and social cohesion.
The working group was started in 2013 in Kalmar as the Design and Innovation network to address the broader issues addressing the changing nature of design within industry, government and society. After two engaging meetings, it was felt that this topic should be refined to reflect a stronger focus on the role of design within industry to support innovation. To reflect this change the working group has been retitled Industry and Innovation.
The revised Cumulus network aims have also been updated to reflect to bring together a global network of academics, educators and practitioners to share and explore approaches and challenges to the repositioning of ‘design’ as a downstream operational activity to a driver of strategic value at an organisational level. The network will aim to complement the activities of various National research programs investigating the role and value of design by framing the educational implications to enhance innovation within industry through design.
Specific questions that the working group will aim to address include:
• What will be the emerging design education content to enable industry to address structural economic shifts and remain globally competitive?
• What is the ideal balance between design, science, art and business education to address issues relating to industry and innovation?
• What are the emerging industry engagement frameworks to enable design capability to be embedded within firms to enhance innovation?
• What are the education challenges to prepare design gradates to operate within this context?
• What exemplars projects exist and what forums should these be shared in?
• How can this group provide input to influence regional and global policy?Focus of the Nottingham conference
The next working group will be held in Nottingham and we will be a discussion around a position paper from BEDA on the graduate skills to meet future industry needs. The position paper will be made available to the working group participants. The session will be facilitated to reflect on how the what specific examples the Cumulus community is undertaking to address the concerns raised in the position paper and what recommendations it can make to the broader community.
Contact: Prof. Dr Sam Bucolo
Email: sam.bucolo@uts.edu.au
Institute: University of Technology Sydney, Australia -
fashion and textile
Fashion and Textile working group focuses on giving yet another look at sustainability in the designated fields. As one of the burning topics, we are still to resolve the essence of sustainability in studies, especially in one of the most over-producing sectors when thinking of production. What are the practices you apply? What have been the developments? Where do you see more potential in the upcoming years? How can we already pre-value the design to grant it a respectable life-cycle?
The topic will be approached partly through a documentary „Out of Fashion“ by Jaak Kilmi and Lennart Laberenz released in 2015 following Dr Reet Aus on her misson of finding what she believes to be one of the major solutions of sustainable design in the current economic system.
Additional proposals on this topic (especially curriculum related) are very welcome. Please send your suggestions and proposals to Dr Reet Aus and Prof Piret Puppart.
Initiated by Cumulus Secretariat, the Estonian Academy of Arts launched the Cumulus working group of fashion and textile in 2009. Since then it has at least once a year gathered students, professors and teachers of the related field in the CUMULUS universities for a working group at one of the CUMULUS annual conferences, so far in Europe.
Contact: Dr Reet Aus and Prof Piret Puppart
Email: reet.aus@artun.ee, piret.puppart@artun.ee
Institute: Estonian Academy of Arts -
furniture and interior
The theme for the ‘In this Place’ conference seems tailored to the topic of the Furniture and Interior working group.
The meeting for the Furniture and Interior working group is open to anyone wishing to present research, student works or new ideas related to the topic ‘furniture and interior, teaching and researching’. Presentations on teaching strategies, working methods, innovative curricula or similar, from university departments addressing these keywords, are welcome.
The meeting will share knowledge, viewpoints and insights pertaining to the future development of the fields of interior and furniture, and it will facilitate discussions in search for possible future collaborations among participants.
Please send your proposal (or state your interest in presenting) to Anders Brix, abrix@kadk.dk by 1 April 2016.
Contact: Anders Brix
Email: abrix@kadk.dk
Institute: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark -
gensai design
GENSAI refers to the reduction of damage or causalities caused by disasters such as earthquake, tsunami or typhoon in Japanese. The words ‘disaster prevention’ are more familiar than GENSAI, however we can’t actually defend from natural disasters. Adding to this, the aid and resources for disaster prevention must be stored for long periods of time, meaning in some cases they may not be put to use or are lost from people’s minds.
GENSAI Design means the ideas to increase disaster mitigation through design. The GENSAI Design Project has managed the Design and Planning Competition for GENSAI with SDAFST since 2012.
Proposals for disaster mitigation are sought-after in many areas across the world. Let’s come together to discuss ideas.
Contact: Dr. Jiro Sagara
Email: sagara-j@kobe-du.ac.jp
Institute: Kobe Design University, Japan -
leadership and strategy
Cumulus Leadership and Strategy Working Group
Wednesday 28 April 2016 at 17.00 pm – 19.00 pmHow can design, designers and design education and activities that are connected with them, obtain more impact on the World Development and on those who are in power and have the money?
During the latest meetings of the Cumulus Leadership and Strategy Working Group, we have worked on a Manifesto for what good leadership is. At the next meeting in Nottingham, we will discuss how we transform these good words into an Action. We have invited some specialists from different backgrounds and countries on these issues to come and share their knowledge, experience and visions on how design, designers and design schools can obtain more impact on systems, organizations and cultures in order to contribute to changing the World development in a more positive way.
Cumulus Leadership and Strategy Working Group Manifesto on Leadership.
Our dynamically changing complex society requires new mindsets, approaches and solutions. As Cumulus school leaders our responsibility is to inform and influence our surrounding global society so that our knowledge and solutions have impact and become rapidly diffused. We will do our utmost to create the best educational frameworks, to establish excellent conditions for creative knowledge production and diffusion, for our students and stakeholders.Speakers
Christian Guellerin, Director L´Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique France
Christian´s presentation will be about the double degrees: Are they just wishful thinking? Feedback about Hybrid educationnal programs – Engineering, business, architecture, design, humanitiesElena Kolovskaya, Director Pro Arte Foundation St. Petersburg Russia
Elena will present about her work in the inspiring cultural and also challenging context in the North-West of Russia.Robin Turner, Greenside Design Center, Johannesburg, South Africa
He will present what does design and the design education mean for the development of Africa.Thit Juul Madsen, CEO Design2innovate, Denmark
Thit will present what can happen when a whole region invests in design and make it the fulcrum of its development. And what role can design education play in that development?Contact: Rector Elsebeth Gerner-Nielsen
Email: egn@dskd.dk
Institute: Design School Kolding, DenmarkView the speaker profiles in more detail:
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reveda
For the next ReVeDA WG in Nottingham, we would like to propose a reflection on the nature of design research today, while digging on the relationship between research as an ‘activity’ and design as a ‘mindset’ and all the possible forms and patterns this connection may posit. We want to explore design research aimed both at improving processes of design but also as a field that is developing
domain‐ specific knowledge that is informed by a variety of theoretical lenses, disciplines, and practices.View below a letter of invitation from the group:
Contact: Mariana Amatullo
Email: mariana.amatullo@artcenter.edu
Institute: Art Center College of Design, Northwestern University, USA -
x-files
The Cumulus X-Files Working Group is a group of all Heads of International Offices, policy makers and advisers, international exchange coordinators of Cumulus Member Schools.
They meet at least once a year at Cumulus meetings with general assembly. Presentations, discussions and workshops are about:
• Internationalization philosophy
• Internationalization strategies
• ERASMUS program (daily obstacles)
• International Partner Programs other than ERSMUS
• Hands-on and best-practice in Internationalization as a whole
• Networking within coordinatorsContact: Aparajita Dutta
Email: a.dutta@kabk.nl
Institute: Royal Academy of Art The Hague, the Netherlands
Image Credit: Melton Photography 
