SpeculativeEdu

What are the possible, imaginable and preferable futures of rurality?

We live in globalised times: global phenomena profoundly influence local ones, just as local phenomena influence globality.

How will rural environments change in the near future through the impact of global phenomena affecting our planet, like climate change, migration, new technologies, energy issues, the mutation of cities and work and the transformation of economies?

How will people live, move, communicate and relate between cities and rural places with these transformations?

How will these changes be reflected in people’s daily lives? On the objects they use everyday?

Speculative Design, Design Fiction, Near Future Design and Critical Design approaches will help us to create possible, preferable futures for rurality, and to narrate them through the objects and processes of our future lives.

NeoRural Futures is the summer school of the SpeculativeEdu research project: an intensive workshop about Speculative Design practices, applied to the future of rurality.

• 5 day workshop
• 35 participants
• 3 coordinators
• 5 tutors
• A beautiful location in the heart of Rome
• A final exhibit to celebrate and showcase workshop results
• A cultural programme with meetings, events and conferences in Rome

Outcomes

Perform practice-based experiments in the most promising and innovative approaches of Speculative Design, Design Fiction, Near Future Design and Critical Design.

You will understand how these approaches allow you to generate powerful, participatory and inclusive designs which can open up public, shared reflections on future scenarios for our society, environment and human behaviours.

Apply these approaches to rurality.

Understand how the global phenomena affecting our planet (climate change, migration, technology, energy, health, the transformation of cities, the economy) will influence rural environments, from agriculture, to the livelihood of rural villages, to the ways in which cities and rural environments will be interconnected.

Showcase our findings in a beautiful exhibit across design, technology, art and critical reflection.

Meet an international community of experts, influential designers, researchers, students, and professionals.

Work with them to explore the futures of design and rurality. Be part of an international publication: the outputs of the workshop will be documented, published and credited to participants, becoming part of the SpeculativeEdu research project.

Each day you will meet influential designers, artists, experts and institutions, to explore with them the futures of design and rurality. Visits, conferences and meetings will be disseminated in different locations relevant for art, design and rurality, to discover with your colleagues the beautiful city of Rome.

Participants will transform their concepts in Design Fiction artefacts, materialising their near future scenarios to create an immersive exhibit.

People

• Salvatore Iaconesi, Oriana Persico and Alex Giordano (Coordinators)
• Federico Biggio, Daniele Bucci, Alessandra Del Nero, Arianna Forte and Valeria Loreti (Tutors)
• Herbert Natta and Maria Valese (Storytellers and Welcome)
• + SpeculativeEdu team (Crits and Presenters)

Location

The event will be hosted in the beautiful location of RUFA Space, in the Pastificio Cerere: an historical building for contemporary art in the heart of the San Lorenzo neighbourhood in Rome, close to the main train station (Termini), the historical centre of the city, and to the most characteristic neighbourhoods in Rome.

Applications for the SpeculativeEdu NeoRural Futures summer school are open, register here.