art & engineering workshop

NAFASI Art Space is 'Tanzania’s leading centre for contemporary visual and performing arts.' As part of the center's work in advancing artists, the organization runs the annual The Nafasi Academy for Contemporary Art, Expression, and Inclusion. The 'Nafasi Academy is a training programme for aspiring and emerging artists and cultural workers from underrepresented communities that aims to equip small cohorts of Student Members with the tools, knowledge, and skills critical to creating meaningful work and integrating into local and international art communities'.

The DIT Design Studio is a design engineering makerspace created as a result of the collaboration between the Dar Es Salaam Institute of Technology (leading technical institution) and the Rice 360 Institute for Global Health.  Aimed at 'transforming students into innovators and ideas into sustainable solutions, the makerspace provided technical skills training in rapid prototyping skills and integration of problem-based learning into existing engineering curricular. 

While serving as the manager of the DIT Design Studio, I was approached by a curator & educator from NAFASI seeking to explore ways to teach artists thinking outside the box and engendering the practice of coming up with many ideas during the art process. 

For a better understanding of art educators' needs and perspectives I conducted interviews with the main educator of The Nafasi Art Academy and attended a NAFASI art exhibition. While reviewing my primary research notes, three key gaps began to emerge. 

For my secondary research, I wanted to explore how people from different fields came up with new ideas. First I borrowed from the strengths of this collaboration, reading on art thinking to understand artistic pedagogy and further into design thinking to understand the similar concepts from the makerspace perspective. Based on my interviews, I also looked into lateral thinking as third comparator for ways to come up with innovative ideas. Towards synthesizing these, I compiled methods, mindsets and cognitive strategies applied by educators in the three realms the course would embody - art thinking (centering student background) , lateral thinking (desired outcome) and design thinking (makerspace strength) . 

For each type of thinking, I was able to identify emblematic mindsets (ways of thinking)  and methods (ways of enacting said thinking)  embodying each. 

Attributes from each are summarized below. 

5. CHANGING AFTER FEEDBACK >  Delayed Closure, Reflection, Alteration, Test, iterate

1. Research insights revealed that general sentiment was that art and engineering were completely divorced. If art students were going to feel welcome & confident upon entry into the design studio, a makerspace inside an engineering university, the workshop would have to break down the walls imposed between the art & engineering.

2.  The course should meet the primary goal of my client- teach the students lateral thinking - that is, practical methods towards coming up with many creative ideas. Art students can become members & have access to fabrication technology easily. For this workshop, it was imperative we share another one of the studio's offering; human-centered design thinking. However, whereas the products & devices created by engineers have specific design objectives within the design process- the very nature of the artistic process involved not having a set destination in mind. 

3. The course should introduce students to design thinking while respecting the freedom inherent within the artistic process.