NEWS – new DreamLab collaborative project

What will the future hold for one of the most basic and universal of human activities - the act of eating? Kingston University is delighted to announce an exciting new collaborative and cross-cultural project with partner universities across China. The project, which asks interdisciplinary teams from over 40 leading Chinese universities to respond creatively to the theme of the Future of Eating, is part of a family of projects under the umbrella title 'DreamLab' that make use of bespoke online resources to forge new ways of working and learning online. 

Kingston's 2009 project on the theme of Sleeping and Dreaming matched online collaboration with cross-cultural relationship building. This first incarnation of DreamLab, undertaken in partnership with two UK museums (the Design Museum and Science Museum), two UK universities (Kingston and Bournemouth), and 25 Chinese universities, provided an overarching experience in delivering complex networked collaborations and in utilising the unique opportunities of industry and institutional partnerships. In addition to fostering cultural relationships and encouraging students to think beyond boundaries to answer a challenging and topical subject -- one that affects all of us -- the project aims to encourage the development of practical skills. The brief and live competition helps students prepare for a real-life situation common to the creative industries and fosters new uses of online platforms for creative development and networking.

Launching in May with a final live event in November, The Future of Eating will be jointly delivered by project partners Professor Catherine McDermott, course director of Kingston's MA in Curating Contemporary Design, Professor Edith Sim and Dr Mark Preece in the Kingston University Faculty of Science, with additional external partners, Professor Anthony Dunne (RCA) and Tim Molloy (Science Museum). A public-facing blog tracing project development will launch in July with a series of spin off events and projects on this theme in planning at partner venues.

For more information contact:

Professor Catherine McDermott

Course Director, MA Curating Contemporary Design

Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture

Kingston University London

C.Mcdermott@kingston.ac.uk

NB Connecting Contemporary Designers: a study in piloting e-learning through collaborative online creative practice across UK and Korea, a project funded by ADM-HEA and led by Catherine McDermott, relates to DreamLab and will be published in Networks issue 17.