UNRULY REPAIRS WORKSHOP – Künstler:innenhaus Lauenburg

UNRULY REPAIRS
Workshop by Jian Haake

for experienced graphic designers and experienced makers (professionals or students) from 15-17 July 2024 at the Künstlerhaus Lauenburg.

Throughout cultural institutions, creative studios, and academia, many graphic designers and creative makers use the same universal tools, which are considered the industry standard. These products, privately owned by large companies that answer to shareholders, are designed to always work seamlessly. Yet, many designers tend to underestimate the impact these proprietary tools have on their creative independence and practice as a whole.

This three-day workshop at Künstlerhaus Lauenburg brings together international graphic designers and experienced makers who are interested in engaging in critical conversations around tool ecologies. In an attempt to disrupt familiar workflows and challenge gridlocked design patterns, we will unpack our toolkits and carry out various “Unruly Repairs” on them. With a hands-on approach, we aim to tweak, modify, and repurpose our analog and digital tools before putting them back into practice.

While operating in an ambiguous terrain, oscillating between art and visual communication, we aim to explore disobedient strategies and unconventional tools that intentionally create friction, cause discomfort, and foster the unexpected.

The workshop will be held in dialogue with the concurrent exhibition “Blurring the lines — Gestalterische Praxis zwischen Kunst und Visueller Kommunikation” at Künstlerhaus Lauenburg, and engage in a dynamic interchange between creative practice, artistic expression and critical reflection.

Jian Haake is a graphic designer, experimental maker and educator. In 2017, she graduated from—and continued teaching at—the Master’s course in Communication Design at Muthesius Kunsthochschule, Kiel. Coming from a background in bookmaking and printed matter, her practice is strongly influenced by this perspective, while shifting towards a more hybrid and open understanding of artistic publishing. In 2023, she graduated from a second Master’s course in Experimental Publishing at Piet Zwart Institute and is a founding member of the Rotterdam-based Blob Shop Collective . In her independent and collaborative works, as well as in her workshops and artistic research, Jian Haake establishes a making practice that cultivates unconventional frameworks and happy accidents.

Funded by