The Glasgow School of Art’s Winter School 2020 will bring together hundreds of creatives at their north campus in Moray to tackle the urgent worldwide issue of climate change.
Over 150 international students and academics alongside designers and researchers, which includes a Google team from Seattle, will gather in Forres to learn more about innovative sustainability in regards to their artistic works.
From Monday January 13 until Thursday January 23, students and educators from universities in France, Germany, Japan, Portugal will accompany their creative counterparts from Glasgow School of Art (GSA) and the University of Bristol at GSA’s Highlands and Islands campus for two enlightening programmes.
They will spend the first week exploring the relationship between climate change, design and nature.
In the second week, they will be joined by a specialist team from renowned design agency, Nord Projects and a leading Google group of researchers for an intensive four-day workshop.
This programme will allow the art students and academics to experiment with discovering alternatives and proposing solutions as part of the ‘costing the earth’ challenge.
Head of Innovation School at The Glasgow School of Art, Dr Gordon Hush, believes that the abundance of consumerism present in the world is incomparable to anything in human’s have ever experienced in our history.
Dr Hush said: “We also inhabit a world threatened by scarcity of resources, climate change, enforced mass migration and a creeping sense of guilt born of a sense that we may be the last ‘lucky generation’, the last to enjoy a dream of an always improving future.
“Instead, we may be bequeathing to our children and grandchildren a dystopian world, bereft of natural resources or opportunities for a better life.”
With “fast fashion” and high levels of waste often associated with art and design, the Glasgow School of Art hope the Winter School 2020 in Forres aims to inspire artists across the world to make more climate conscious-choices and strive to make their work more sustainable.
Dr Hush added: “The Glasgow School of Art’s Winter School 2020 will start from the local – the natural environment of the Scottish Highlands – and move to the global bringing together contributors from the USA, Asia and Europe to look at how emerging technologies might be harnessed so that society can get the full benefit of future innovations in products and services without destroying the planet.”
