In professional practice, design is conceived as a service performed in exchange for fees, but in its larger history, design is part of an economy of social customs and obligations. With growing understanding of informal economies and their importance in crisis situations, broader understandings and richer models of design are needed.

This mini-symposium of short provocations and projects by designers and design educators explores how design work can grow as it is exchanged by collaborators and across cultures and disciplines.

Host: Rebekah Davis (Griffith University Queensland College of Art)

Speakers:

Anita Cooney (Pratt Institute, NYC)

Andrew Dahlgren (Parsons NYC/University of the Arts, Philadelphia)

Laura Chessin (Virginia Commonwealth University)

Cassandra Lehman-Schultz (Griffith University Queensland College of Art)

Zach Kaiser (Michigan State University)