Faculty of Design and Art

EXCESS In the summer semester 2024 Studio Image/Faculty of Design and Art explored and developed visual (counter-)narratives to challenge existing stereotypical representations of abundance, surplus, the nonessential and the uncalled-for. How do narratives of excess interact with imaginaries of renouncement, sacrifice and resistance? How do they affect the way we perceive ourselves, how we live together as societies? Thank you @urbanomicdotcom , @moe_fang_adept , @davidetommasoferrando , Anna Kornbluh, @gardiemmel for your inspiring input! With @hedgehogalii , @annatapetto , Ariana Mirea, @bea_carner , @elenamarconatoo , @hannesdoppeldecker , Lara E. Guttieres, @lorenzo.cogotti , @marcogardinimarco , @wassupmelli , Mette Beuter, @meretserafina , @sara_brucato , @verovasko , @violainberlin

Make it Better: Redesigning fizzy beverage labels Our students at @unibz_designxart have taken on the challenge of redesigning the beverage labels for Frizzante! During a two-day workshop, they developed various designs using analogue techniques and different approaches, starting from trusting their taste, delving into the ingredients, and learning about the brand story of Comunità Frizzante. Finally, they challenged their designs by creating variations based on the creative method of “Oblique Strategies.” The final designs were later animated and embedded in an AR experience. 📅 Join us at the GOG exhibition to see the innovative redesigns proposed by our talented students! Students: Marla Autschbach, Chiara Christina Baumgärtel, Stella Brandlhuber, Margherita Burchietti, Michela Capato, Franka Durst, Ilaria Failo, Sofie Fardel, Theresa Handig, Mathilda Holthaus, Angelika Kopp, Federica Kozma, Emma Lieben-Seutter, Meike Haun, Edwin Antonio Mendoza Flores, Theresa Podsiadly, Erica Rosa, Beatrice Venturato, Lea Vrabelova, Lennard Wasser. Course lead by: Thomas Kronbichler @thomaskronbichler , Andreas Trenker @andreastrenker , Prof. Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen

Make it Better: Redesigning South Tyrol’s Coat of Arms Our students at @unibz_designxart have reimagined the Coat of Arms of South Tyrol as part of the “Make it Better” project! Within the workshop, they tackled the challenges of visual reduction and simplification using the open-source tool Glyphdrawingclub which offers a modular grid to create visual compositions. Join us at the GOG exhibition to see these amazing redesigns and grab your own offset printed poster! 🙌 Special thanks to Longo Printing House and Fedrigoni @fedrigoni.paper for sponsoring the printing and paper! Students: Marla Autschbach, Chiara Christina Baumgärtel, Stella Brandlhuber, Margherita Burchietti, Michela Capato, Franka Durst, Ilaria Failo, Sofie Fardel, Theresa Handig, Mathilda Holthaus, Angelika Kopp, Federica Kozma, Emma Lieben-Seutter, Meike Haun, Edwin Antonio Mendoza Flores, Theresa Podsiadly, Erica Rosa, Beatrice Venturato, Lea Vrabelova, Lennard Wasser. Course lead by: Thomas Kronbichler @thomaskronbichler , Andreas Trenker @andreastrenker , Prof. Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen

Gäste - Ospiti - Guests: Finally, G.O.G. is back! Come visit us at unibz - Faculty of Design and Art 14-15 JUNE 2024 Friday opening 18-21 Saturday 11-17 Typeface: Baustraße by @fantasia.type #graphic #gog #visualcommunication #typo #exhibition #designdaily #unibz #gotrilingual #university #bozen #southtyrol #altoadige @unibz @unibz_designxart

Atti espositivi di immaginazione politica: Il caso Disobedience Archive Marco Scotini in a dialogue with Arnold Braho public talk 03.06.2024 — 6 pm room C1.01 it will be held in Italian The Disobedience Archive project is an archive of artistic and cultural practices of activism, conceived by @marco_scotini in 2005 when he planned a travelling exhibition of videos, graphic materials and ephemera that explores the links between contemporary artistic practices, cinema, tactical media and political activism. Designed as an evolving archive of video images, the project is intended to be a “user’s guide” to four decades of social disobedience seen through history and geography. In various forms, the archive has been exhibited at the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Nottingham Contemporary, Raven Row (London), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston) and Bildmuseet (Umeå), Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (Turin), Istanbul Biennial. For the 60th Venice Biennale, the section is divided into two main parts: Diaspora Activism and Gender Disobedience including works by 39 artists and collectives created between 1975 and 2023. The event is organised by Studio Exhibit, Faculty of Design and Art, Free University of Bozen/Bolzano in conjunction with the exhibition of the Disobedience Archive to the 60th Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della Biennale di Venezia, Foreigners Everywhere.

𝗜𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲. 𝗕𝗼𝘇𝗲𝗻-𝗕𝗼𝗹𝘇𝗮𝗻𝗼 𝟭𝟵𝟮𝟮-𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 is a programme of public seminars dedicated to critical approaches to the study and resignification of the architectural and environmental traces of the Italian fascist regime, and of their legacy in the present. Each event will foster exchanges between experts who deal with historical investigations through material and visual traces preserved in archives, museum collections and public spaces, and art practitioners who intervene in these very contexts.   The seminars are organized by the working group of “Curating Bolzano Fascist Legacy. A Sustainable Approach to a City’s Dissonant Heritage” (CuFa). CuFa in an interdisciplinary research project of the Faculty of Design and Arts of the Free University of Bolzano, led by Roberto Gigliotti with historian Andrea Di Michele and Waltraud Kofler Engl. The project is developed with arts organisations Lungomare (@lungomare_bozen_bolzano ) and BAU – Institute for Contemporary Arts and Ecology (@bau_southtyrol ) , and Prof. Dr. Andres Lepik, director of the Architecture Museum and the Chair of History of Architecture and Curatorial Practices at the Technical University of Munich. The working group includes Elisabetta Rattalino, Gaia Piccarolo, Gianluca Camillini, and Davide Tommaso Ferrando.   CuFa investigates display strategies and curatorial methodologies that can critically question the traces of fascist architecture in Bolzano and the city’s complex urban history, whilst opening new critical perspectives on communicating, understanding and resignifying difficult and controversial historical moments and monuments. Inhabited Dissonance. Bozen-Bolzano 1922-2024  is the first public event of the research project, whose results will be presented with an exhibition in the Galleria Civica of Bolzano and in selected public spaces of Bolzano in April 2025. The exhibition is supported by the Municipality of Bozen-Bolzano and the Provincia Autonoma di Bozen-Bolzano. Image: Gianni Pettena, Secoli e Millenni, drawing series, 2014. Courtesy of #GianniPettena and @museion_bz Many thanks @carlotta_rudari for the graphic design

This weekend: the opening of RIMBOMBO, a photographic exhibition realised by the students of @unibz_designxart in collaboration with @museostorico at @bookique.trento . The Fondazione Museo storico del Trentino preserves a photo album documenting the bombing of the San Martino neighborhood in Trento on May 13, 1944, by the Anglo-American air force. To mark the 80th anniversary of this event, a part of these photographs are displayed in an exhibition open to the public. RIMBOMBO is the result of a hard semester project. Students realised everything: the concept, the brand identity, the printing, the woodworking. We worked as in a real studio, divided into groups, each presenting and pitching to colleagues and clients. Everyone is invited to our presentation at the Bar Bookique in @san_martino_trento , Friday 31st May, 16:00h. The exhibition will be open during the art festival “Il Fiume che non c’è”. Rimbombo exhibition, curated by the Faculty of Design and Arts Bolzano in collaboration with Fondazione Museo storico del Trentino @elena.tonezzer . Supported by Comune di Trento @livetrento . Graphic design direction Prof. Christian Upmeier, Matteo Campostrini @matcampostrini , Prof. Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen

“If we understand assembly as a form of spatial gathering, and the bonfire as the prehistoric space of assembly, what constitutes its contemporary equivalent?” Agonistic Assemblies Markus Miessen book launch 21.05.2024 — 7pm Luna Bar at Parkhotel Mondschein Markus Miessen – Studio Miessen / Cultures of Assembly, Strada Montana/Luxembourg Barbara Casavecchia – Mousse magazine, Milan Lisa Mazza & Simone Mair – BAU institute for contemporary arts and ecology, Bolzano Jonathan Pierini – ISIA Urbino, Unibz, Uniurb, SS16 Studio, Urbino/Bolzano Katharina Volger – architect, Berlin/Bressanone Organizzato da Visual Communication Course “The Pub Hub”, Faculty of Design and Art, Free University of Bozen/Bolzano. In collaboration with Parkhotel Mondschein. #unibz #unibz _designxart #event #booklaunch

“MBF52 - Modularer Baukasten Fahrradständer” is the graduation project of Samuel Simoni (DES BA @simoni_samuel ) developed under the supervision of Klaus Hackl and Francesco Sommacal during the graduation session 2022.3
“Mobility is the weave of our cities. Its infrastructure characterizes the urban landscape and, like the traffic lights of East Berlin, gives it an identity through their repeated appearances. Microarchitectures of public spaces, however, mostly have pedestrians as their main target group. From public toilets, to drinking fountains - also in the past the design targeted pedestrians. But as the Danish urban planner and architect Jan Gehl claims, in a “human scaled” city, cyclists and pedestrians should be arranged within the same category. Sustainable mobility in cities should be by foot, public transport and via bicycle. However, some means of the latter medium has the need to be parked when not in use. This thesis deals with exactly that problem: developing a safe, space-efficient and completely free-of-charge bicycle parking facility. Through precise research methods and testing across one-to-one models, the bicycle stand MBF52 was developed: a modular bicycle parking system which, by virtue of its coloured elements and dynamic shape, offers the possibility to park bikes compactly with maximum safety.” #design #thesisproject #unibz

“Faucet Redesign, rethinking water interaction” is the graduation project of Marco Ciacci (DES BA @marco.ciacci ) developed under the supervision of Nitzan Cohen (@nitzannncohen ) and Aart van Bezooijen (@aartvanbezooijen ) during the graduation session 2022.11 “This summer’s drought and the resulting inconveniences prompted the creation of this thesis, which aimed to find more sustainable water consumption methods. The water faucet was identified as the main protagonist of the interaction between the consumer and the water resource in the research. What has been noticed is that the faucet already works at its best but speaks the wrong language; the technologies within this product have evolved while the interaction and formal aspect remain unchanged since the 1930s, when mass production and consumption, the Streamline, and the single-handle faucet were born. The ability of objects to speak, shout, or whisper serves as a vehicle not only for their function but also for principles and ideals. A handle’s shape conveys not only how it works, but also whether it should be opened quickly, catapulting to the other side, or cautiously, sliding it sideways. Can a faucet, in the same way, convey principles of responsible consumption and sustainable habits in its operation and use? The outcome of this thesis is the (re)design of a faucet in which the faucet-consumer interaction and general formal aspect are revisited through a process of inversion in order to transform consumerist habits into responsible and conscious gestures. To do so, the blind gesture of opening the lever upwards at its maximum was inverted with a gentle descent of the faucet. In addition, the aerator filter, a forgotten and purposefully hidden element, has been brought to the foreground and redesigned, opening a new human-water conversation.” #design #thesisproject #unibz

“Of witches, wild women and peasant women” is the graduation project of Nora Rinner (DES BA @nora.rinner ) developed under the supervision of Michele Galluzzo (@galluzzo.michele ) and Elisabetta Rattalino (@motherofoaks ) during the graduation session 2022.11 “A folk tale is an oral narrative of extraordinary events whose motives are closely linked to the customs and traditions of a people. It hides between the lines beliefs, opinions, norms and values of those who share a common cultural background, and often has a strong symbolic importance for the relevant community. In the past, legends were mainly passed down orally and sometimes represented in pictorial cycles, embroideries, and decorations of everyday objects. In contrast, the first written collections of folk legends date back to the 19th century. Vinschgau Valley preserves a rich heritage of folk tales thanks to scholars Ignaz V. Zingerle (1825-1892) and Dr. Friedrich Willhelm Mai (1911-1945). Like all legends, those from this alpine valley offer insight into the daily hardships and poverty of much of the local population and their awareness of being at the mercy of nature. This thesis is an editorial project that collects and reinterprets a selection
of these legends. My work has focused on the recurring female figures in these narratives, such as the witch, the wild woman, and the peasant woman. Coming from the Vinschgau Valley myself, I wanted to trace the female cultural patterns of my valley. The project not only collects these legends but also aims to represent their female protagonists. It does so by resorting to the craft of cross-stitch, a traditional craft technique that is predominantly feminine and widely used in the Vinschgau Valley. I traced, among others, cross-stitch patterns in the possession of my grandmother Maria Theiner, born in 1938 in Langtaufers. These printed materials served as a starting point for the typographic and graphic choices in my work, and it is for this reason that, in the collection of stories resulting from my thesis work, each illustration I made, can also become the iconographic model for a new embroidery.” #graphicdesign #thesisproject #unibz

Understanding the past to shape the present. #unibzdoesitbetter - Last week the students of the visual communication project “Design - Publish - Exhibit” visited the city of Trento in a new light. This semester our students have the unique opportunity to collaborate with the Fondazione Museo Storico del Trentino, under the expert guidance of researcher Elena Tonezzer (@elena.tonezzer ). In this project, they will work on the branding and communication campaign for a small historical photographic exhibition commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Anglo-American bombing of the San Martino district of Trento. During the excursion they had the opportunity to see and be inspired by the museum’s amazing and rare archive.