The Open Design Course began in 2016 by the initiative of Bram Crevits, trying to formulate an answer to some urgent needs: but mainly as a way to offer support for an unseen influx of people fleeing war and seeking refuge in Europe. Due to regulations of higher education it is almost impossible for most of the newcomers to start or to continue their studies as ‘regular students’ within the Belgian education system.
Open Design Course initiative is intended to create a space within KASK (The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) and the Royal Conservatory constitute the School of Arts of University College Ghent,Belgium) where it is possible to bypass the technical/administrative restrictions, to welcome refugees and asylum seekers and provide them with a high-quality learning context.
The course is introduced by a multidisciplinary and diverse teaching team, including ODC alumni. 14 participants are invited to use their educational, professional and cultural expertise to design collective and personal projects.
Open Design Course is dedicated to refugees, asylum seekers and those who do not have access to higher education due to administrative, financial or social reasons. The course focuses on Open Design as a technological, cultural, artistic and critical practice. The course methods are based on co-creation and peer learning, putting an emphasis on new media literacy, FLOSS tools (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) and co-creation methodologies.
All those points were used in the project branding.
As any project, In the beginning I start with piece of paper. When sketches were approved, it moves in to experimentation in different softwares, such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and Adobe Lightroom for the photos of my work's presentation.
The exhibition was in KASK (The Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Conservatory constitute the School of Arts of University College Ghent,Belgium).
The reaction for the project was very positive, well received and liked by Open design course organisers.
To see more work, visit my instagram account @kindaghannoum.
https://www.instagram.com/kindaghannoum/
