Design+Change, Master Programme
120 creditsThe Master Programme in Design + Change is an advanced-level two-year programme within Design, the main field of study.
Design involves creativity, criticality and transformation. Design calls into question the state of things and makes an impact. Design challenges preconceptions, prejudices, norms, and stereotypes and provokes emotions, thoughts, sensibilities and actions. Design can enhance our lives and our relationships to the world. It can make us attentive and empathic to the ecological and socio-cultural systems in which we live. In a world of many challenges, design can be an agent for sustainable change.
In shaping our futures, designers will face unprecedented challenges compared to what conventional designers faced during the twentieth century. In fact, the role of the designer will and should change. Instead of only designing for mass production, which was important during the first phase of industrialisation, designers of futures must handle multiple roles and increasingly complex issues. As agents for change, designers will play key roles in shaping futures of sustainability.
On the Design+Change Master’s Programme at Linnaeus University we challenge the traditional role of the designer, working across disciplinary and media boundaries to define new roles that meet contemporary and future needs. For design to confront the crises we are now facing, we need to work together with other academic disciplines and cultural practices and in partnerships with professional designers, community organisations, businesses, activists and governmental bodies.
Students on the Design+Change Master’s Programme can choose to extend their existing knowledge in a specific design field or explore new ones. The programme focusses on artistic and experimental processes and creative research, and students will develop their capacity for critical reflection in making well rounded and futures oriented design proposals. Particular attention is paid to contemporary and emerging design disciplines such as critical and speculative design, social design, metadesign and design activism. Furthermore, students are introduced to and practice relevant methods for questioning the current state of things, opening up to ways of thinking and shaping futures creatively and differently.
Career
Our aim is to develop artistic maturity and foster responsible designer roles with a focus on sustainability and design as a change agent. At LNU, you will develop your skills with exploratory work, concept development and implementation, in complex projects.
Degree
Master of Fine Arts (Main field of study: Design)
Application and portfolio
The application process consists of two steps. First you need to apply to the programme online at at www.universityadmissions.se (in English), or www.antagning.se (in Swedish). Then you need to submit your portfolio together with your other documentation regarding eligibility on your pages on www.universityadmissions.se (in English), or www.antagning.se (in Swedish).
You find instructions for the portfolio below.
Student projects
Daniel Gustafsson
My collaborator Ebba and I have developed a new Paralympic seat for the sport of rowing. As a norm-creative innovation, it is a design that understands and addresses the particularities of the individual body and its specific needs. The project investigates the combination of co-creation, craft and norm-creative methods as a pragmatic and alternative approach to sports equipment.
Karina Zaitceva
My project raises questions about the occupation of urban spaces by motor vehicles. Design activism and urban social movements inform my proposal to reclaim the public space as a pedestrian. I assembled a DIY pedestrian body parking artefact and placed it at on-street car parking spaces. With my artifact I was trying to bring a balance in the use of these shared collective areas.
Andrei Zberea
Sustainable housing for students goes beyond what we consider typical housing. In my speculative design project I depict a future in which students move with their homes without boundaries. A student has the possibility to relocate with their home to different places and universities using normal means, and reconnect to an infrastructure with no complexities.
More about the Department of Design
Växjö
Roughly 15 minutes with a bike from the city centre, you will find Linnaeus University’s campus. It is like a small society with the university, student accommodation, and student life. Here you become part of a creative knowledge environment.
What will you come across on an excursion in Växjö – the city of contrasts? You will find good restaurants, a celebrated hockey team, and cozy cafés where you can enjoy a latte with lingonberry flavour. In Växjö, beautiful nature is always just around the corner; the city is surrounded by lakes and forests. Students like the combination of the city centre and the active student life on campus. Your dream of the future starts here!
