Seminar 4

KASIA JACKOWSKA UND LEO FAUST

Our seminar is devoted to envisioning the future and expressing ideas through images. In our course we will investigate the possible scenarios for this area. How will this landscape look in the future? And what kind of future will it be? Will the climate crisis be avoided or not? Both scenarios will be taken as a base for visions of the future. In the first step, we will explore the area through photography, the first choice of tourists, artists and scientists. The individual perception and interpretation of the given perimeter is a base for future scenarios. We turn to hand drawing for a seamless transition between real and invented. Much like words, and unlike photographs, drawings enable a clear focus on selected aspects by leaving out irrelevant information. Just as we base our future visions on what is there now, we‘ll draw over the photographs to investigate possible developments.

Each student will focus on a chosen aspect of the future world and work individually on a visual story about it. Parallel to it, the students and tutors will create two illustrated maps of the territory om the far future, assuming a future of an untamed climate crisis and an emission-free world. The plans, covering the entire research area, will connect the single visions into coherent scenarios.

The learning process will concentrate on various aspects of picture-based storytelling. We will discover new drawing techniques through a series of practical exercises. We understand drawing as step one in content curation; creating a series of selected drawings will be the second step of storytelling. An analysis of contemporary artworks will broaden participants‘ non-verbal vocabulary. The engagement of fine art-related means of expression allows for a subjective, narrative layer complementing the usual «objective» drawings repertoire and facilitates a clear focus in storytelling.

This bilingual course is meant for non-German speaking exchange students and HSLU students who wish to improve their language and drawing skills. The seminar is suitable for everyone, regardless of their artistic talents; we believe that communicating through drawings is as natural as with words: as in any language course, reaching proficiency in the powerful tool of drawing is just a matter of courage and practice.

Just as today‘s problems were not foreseeable 200 years ago when the industrialisation process accelerated, we can‘t predict the future, but we can imagine and draw one.