Lucas de Ruiter


Contact

OFFFENCE


Project details

    ↳OFFFENCE collective is in collaboration with: Alexandra Koutsaftis, Benjamin Motoc, Charlíe Flotho, Dominik Vrabič Dežman, Diogo Rinaldi, Emma Lijdsman, Hannah Segerkrantz, Ilja Schaml, Karl Moubarak, Niels Nielsen, Pierre K'You, Sara Roeth



At the beginning of 2018, we shared a need to distance ourselves from the institutional limitations of the Design Academy Eindhoven and exercise a self-organised education program. We called it OFFFENCE.

Driven by dettachment and contextuality, we landed in the rocky landscape of Matera, Italy, in September. Each one of us arrived with a list of intentions, and creating a support system for experimental learning processes was a shared goal.

Different tools, techniques and approaches were created to allow and assist the practice of freedom and to enhance the power of making. Seeing that change can be a parallel happening of the self, the collective and the contextual opened windows to new understandings.

We questioned and negotiated everything. From voting systems to interaction filters; from dinner menus to splitting bills; from note-taking to archiving; from heated arguments to non-violent dialogues; from workshops with materials to immaterial recordings; from games to dances; from ever-changing housing schedules to sacred private spaces; from techno music to desired silence; from the birth of initiatives to the graveyard of failed proposals.

Unanticipated possibilities unfolded on a daily basis, teaching, or reminding us about our open paths. It was up to us to make sense of success and failure. Peer feedback became a cornerstone. And we designed ourselves in the meantime.  

— Diogo Rinaldi