Events

UIC School of Design
2019–2020 Public Seminar Series
Sara Cantor Aye

Sara Cantor Aye co-founded Greater Good Studio to apply her background in ethnographic research and design strategy to overlooked problems and underserved people. At Greater Good, she designs effective and inclusive engagements, guides the research practice, and develops partnerships with clients, peers and mentors. Sara speaks regularly on designing for social impact and has facilitated social innovation workshops around the world with a wide range of learners, from nonprofit executives to high school students. She holds a masters in design planning from the Institute of Design at IIT and a bachelors in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University.

The UIC School of Design public seminar series serves as a research platform for the school’s MDES program, stimulating broad intellectual inquiry about the values guiding the designer by promoting discourse across industrial and graphic design.

Thursday, November 21
6:00–7:30 pm
Room 1300
Architecture and Design Studios
845 West Harrison Street, Chicago

This event is free and open to the public.

UIC School of Design
2019–20 public seminar series

Where does upending end up? When the ‘up’ becomes the ‘end’ so that the ‘end’ becomes the ‘up,’ will we eventually end up in the same place we were before? What is in between ‘the end’ and ‘the up’ and how might these points of reference shift?

Context and space matter: viewing a subject, object, or method from a different perspective can serve as a rich starting point for upending. There are countless ways to interact, sniff, touch, look, and listen. Makers, thinkers, maker/thinkers, and thinker/makers may come to similar topics of speculation through their own lenses — work that encourages not only contemplation and discussion, but action.

What are the practical consequences and applications of speculation? Where does upending end up? This year’s UIC School of Design graduate public seminar series aims to critically examine flipping, twisting, tipping, inverting, reversing, overturning, and upending — inviting speculation on the potentiality of ending up.

– Grace Dyer and Hilary Short, 2019–20 UIC School of Design graduate public seminar series directors, MDES class of 2020