About the seminar "The island of utopia: a mini-world for a pedagogy of social futures"
Robert Owen, the son of a British blacksmith born in 1771, and Jean-Baptiste Godin, son of a French locksmith born in 1817, both stand out for their projects intended to rethink the living and working conditions of the working class. Through these initiatives, we observe experiments in ergonomics and the early, tentative steps of research related to Object Design.
From the experience of organizing ​workshops for students, focusing on the visual representation of Social Utopias, Blanche Laviale questions the motivation behind what makes the Island theme spring quite instinctively into their minds, as a site for social improvement. Shifting between Utopia and Heterotopia, she analyses the figure of the Island, as a counter-space connecting - or not - with the rest of the world, as a place for dreams, and an ideal site for visualizing Social Futures.
Blanche Laviale is a Lecturer in Design, specializing in Social Innovation, and an Independent Researcher from Paris.
If you have questions regarding the seminar, contact Helena Kraff: Helena.kraff@hdk.gu.se
