22-10-2020
One week about

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MU Hybrid Art House www.mu.nl

DDW 2020 – The Self Design Academy

By 22-10-2020

During Dutch Design Week 2020, Dutch Design Daily shows a live activity on location every day, today the exhibition The Self Design Academy at MU Hybrid Art House.

Who are we and who do we want to be? Driven by the lucrative selfhelp industry we polish our identities and image. That turns all of us into selfdesigners – there just wasn’t a training for it yet… But now there is

“In our time self-design has become the mass cultural practice par excellence”, writes philosopher Boris Groys. Our self is elusive, to say the least. It roams in memories and dreams, it briefly shows up on x-rays and personality tests. Our self depends on the world around us and yet it is seen as the autonomous centre of our actions and attention.

What is self-design, what can it be? How can we (re)design ourselves and why would we want to? These questions are central to The Self Design Academy, a project by MU Hybrid Art House in collaboration with Mieke Gerritzen’s Image Society. Together with 18 designers and artists The Self Design Academy researches both online and offline how we can define, understand and design ourselves in the light of the radical changes that surround us.

Inspired by, and critical towards the continuously growing popularity of the selfhelpindustry, we turn to the creative strategies that can help us and reflect upon the whether or not essential malleability of the self.

Keep an eye on theselfdesignacademy.nl for more info about the program and artists, exclusive online works, ‘behind the scenes’ videos and livestreams.

Exhibition ‘The Self Design Academy’
MU Hybrid Art House
Torenallee 40-06 (Strijp-S)
18 September – 22 November 2020
www.mu.nl