GSD (Graduate School of Design), a graduate school of Harvard University, is known as the academic leader in the field of global design, and is famous for the discipline of architectural space. However, on the official home page of GSD, art practice has been placed at the top of the research topics, and the content is also the most among all topics. How about the GSD contemporary art practice of Harvard University?

GSD Contemporary Art Practice of Harvard University

Looking at other home pages, we will also find that GSD's discussion of architectural topics is not only about architecture or design itself, but also more about the relationship between modern society and human beings.

Home page of GSD official website

GSD Contemporary Art Practice Postgraduate Program of Harvard University

Accordingly, Harvard University GSD also offers an independent graduate course for contemporary art practice - Design Research, which is the only graduate course of GSD that has nothing to do with the Department of Architectural Space. Next, we will talk about how Harvard University practices contemporary art through this three semester master's course.

GSD Contemporary Art Practice Postgraduate Program of Harvard University

GSD's description of this course is very concise. Due to the characteristics of architecture, the official definition of contemporary art in this course of the college, in addition to the basic emphasis on "breaking boundaries", the interdisciplinary characteristics of contemporary art, is more inclined to guide students to study art and explore more possibilities based on the topic of contemporary life.

Harvard GSD Contemporary Art Practice Postgraduate Program Key Fields

The official website of GSD also provides eight key areas of the course for students to refer to, which include both the history and philosophy of literature design and media, as well as the art design and public domain that are the same as RCA's contemporary art practice. Similarly, the courses of the Department of Architectural Space mentioned above also have a considerable number of exposures in the key research fields of master's courses in design research.

In addition, it is also worth paying attention to key protection, risk and resilience, and energy protection, which are three fields that are relatively rare in design disciplines. However, these three fields are slightly unfamiliar to students studying design, but they can see the real purpose and spirit of GSD design research project setting.

Introduction to risk and resilience in key areas of GSD design research course

Taking the field of risk and resilience as an example, when it comes to this topic, students must have a question mark in their minds. No matter what they think, it seems that it has nothing to do with contemporary art, or even art. But after reading the official explanation, we have to admire the originality of GSD.

The college cited such common unstable factors in contemporary society as natural disasters, public health crises, and violence. But so far, none of these crises has caused serious confusion and impression, which is due to the society's ability to absorb and respond to risks. The college officials hope that students can also learn and have the corresponding ability. As designers, they can "preemptively" understand, understand and deal with risks.

Key areas of GSD design research courses

The research topic of the key field of GSD design research course, "risk and resilience", will change with the change of current events. The topic of research in the past two years is "environment and migration". The college official emphasizes to correctly examine the emergence of migration issues through the perspective of design - including human and non-human.

Through the choice of topics, we can also see that although the master's course of design research in Harvard University is called design, its purpose is far beyond the design field itself.

We all know that interdisciplinary is synonymous with contemporary art, but most of the interdisciplinary research in the field of contemporary art in colleges is often still on our common art related carriers, such as dynamic video, such as performance and the public domain. So is RCA.

However, GSD's design and research course has adopted a more macro perspective, applying the highly interactive ideas and learning methods of art to the problems of the times.

"Cryosphere"by Keith Hartwig(MDes'18).

Examples of GSD Design Research Student Works

In such a macro perspective, design has become an infinite possibility, which can also be seen from the student works display on the official website. There are various situations and different carriers, but the only thing that is the same is that these works show, ask questions or seek solutions around real problems. Therefore, design research is actually to study from the perspective of design, rather than research design.

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