Partnering in the Development of Creative Industries in Timor-Leste
In July 2011, a number of Queensland College of Art staff visited Timor, as part of an ongoing partnership with the country to showcase and celebrate the work of outstanding creative people – artists, designers, craftspeople, musicians, writers, photographers, film-makers and thinkers – from Timor-Leste and around the world.
The aim of this particular event, and our continuing relationship with Timor, is to further develop Creative Industry in Timor-Leste. The Timorese community will present the best of the nation’s traditional and modern music, art, craft, photography, writing and more. It also gives the community the opportunity to see and experience new and exciting forms of creative production from globally acclaimed artists, designers and musicians. There has been nothing like this ever before in Timor-Leste.
Read more about this event and view the digital program: Academy of Creative Industries, Timor-Leste 2011.
International HotHouse: Design, Action, Leadership & the Future, July 2011
Design practice (in all its disciplines, including architecture) is at a crossroads. While sustainability issues are currently a hot topic in design education and in commerce, design is still a predominantly unsustainable practice.
To move toward ‘sustainment’, radical and effective action is needed. For this to happen, a dynamic, global community of focused thinkers, activists and leaders has to be created. This intensive ‘HotHouse’
event at the Queensland College of Art aims to
explore and be a catalyst for the creation of this community.
The HotHouse will rigorously examine redirective change via thinking, talking, reflecting, planning and acting.
Zoontechnica
For three years the Design Department of the Queensland College of Art (QCA) has been developing and teaching ´design futures´. The fundamental proposition of design futures is that there is an imperative to educate designers to deal with the challenges of the future as they accelerate toward us. Design Futures is about rethinking what design is and does, how it can be strategically deployed in new ways and how it can effect major change in issues of sustainment.
To take this thinking seriously means creating a new paradigm of practice and education, and this is exactly what we are working toward at QCA. Our Master of Design Futures program is the leading edge of this activity and research into the future of design and how we can remain at the forefront of such issues. We're all about adventurous ideas; risk takers, the expose experimental projects; promoting exchange around ´project based learning´, and supporting change.
The Zoontechnica journal is a forum that supports career starters and innovatory research. As such it will accommodate writing that ranges from the highly theoretical to the popular and anecdotal, but with the proviso that whatever is written is to a high standard.
SECAP
Sustainable Environment through Culture in the Asia Pacific (SECAP) is a research initiative of QCA. The objectives of SECAP include multi-disciplinary approaches to the visual arts in line with UNESCO’s 2001 Declaration on Cultural Diversity: ‘culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of
living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs.’
Directed by Professor Pat Hoffie membership of SECAP includes research active staff and research students at QCA who work in a range of ways including collaborative initiatives and projects, a number of which have been established in conjunction with other organisations and institutions.
Within Design and Digital Media, Donna Marcus, from QCA Gold Coast, is a researcher for the SECAP research initiative of the Queensland College of Art. A listing of Donna's research outputs at the Research Data Management Centre (Griffith University).
QCA Gold Coast
Griffith’s innovative areas of research are supported by opportunities to explore cross-disciplinary research with supervisors from different fields of expertise. At QCA Gold Coast, all continuing staff are encouraged to maintain a research profile.
QCA Gold Coast staff have a wide range of interests, stemming from their studio practice and research topics, but the core focus is the environment around us and the responsibilities of creatives in a world crying out for sustainability.
Your Research Path
Research degree programs provide a unique opportunity to follow a specific interest in a particular area of research, to focus on this for several years and make an important contribution to the development of new knowledge. Research degrees are offered in all departments across all Griffith University campuses.
For more information about following your own research path or taking up Postgraduate study at Griffith, visit the QCA Postgraduate study page.