With the arrival of autumn, we are looking forward to the announcements for the rich cultural program in the city, and one of the events that designers might be interested in is a new workshop and exhibition in production of Arts Academy of the University of Split and the Department of Visual Communication Design – INTERACTIONS 2023: Homo Aquaticus.

A workshop INTERACTIONS 2023: Homo Aquaticus will be held from October 11th to 14th at the Department of Visual Communication Design of the Arts Academy of the University of Split as a part of the discursive program of the Croatian pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. The workshop’s outcomes will be displayed and made public as part of the Croatian pavilion’s presentation during the Venice Architecture Biennale.

The session is free to attend, there is a cap of 20 participants, and the application deadline is September 8th. You can register at this link.

Graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, and young practitioners engaged in creative practices in a variety of fields, such as architecture, design, art, digital technologies, psychology, social and natural sciences, and all other participants who consider themselves to be able to contribute to this year’s topic, are invited at this year’s edition of the workshop INTERACTION, which will host lectures, discussions, an exhibition, and a workshop.

The Homo Aquaticus edition of INTERACTIONS will discuss the potential effects of global climate change as well as the local context of the Adriatic and Mediterranean in terms of technology, economics, and politics.

The workshop is imagined so that the participants focus on potential utopian communities of the near future, in order not to create new places of community resilience, but places of transition in the present towards new and different societies, communities of hope, and communities of the future.

Ivica Mitrović, Head of the Department of Visual Communication Design and the curator of the discursive program of the Croatian Pavilion in Venice, Oleg Šuran from the Arts Academy of the University of Split, Mia Roth and Tonči Čerina, the curators of the Croatian exhibition at the Biennale, are all contributing to organizing the event.

Valentin Grailla and Oliver Troff, design researchers from ENS Paris-Saclay (France’s University of Paris-Saclay), are the workshop’s hosts. Sociologist and author Gennaro Asscione (University of Naples “L’Orientale,” Italy) and microbiologist and ecologist Mladen Šolić (Institute for Oceanography and Fisheries, Split, Croatia) are guests of the discursive program (lectures and discussions).

Additionally, I advise checking their website, Instagram, and Facebook profiles for individuals who want to learn more about speculative design and perhaps get ready for the upcoming workshop.

Furthermore, this link allows you to check out and buy the book “Beyond Speculative Design: Past, Present, and Future“, edited by Ivica Mitrović, James Auger, Julian Hanna, and Ingi Helgason.

Article written by: Ivana Mikulić

Photos and visuals: DVK