Public lecture March 30, 2022
310 Inner Campus Drive B7500
78712-1009 Austin TX
T 512 471 0154
soa-communications@utexas.edu
Amsterdam-based art collective Studio DRIFT joins The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture’s Interior Design Program for a week-long workshop titled “Choreographed Encounters,” which will result in a series of student-designed interventions on the university campus. During the visit, artist and DRIFT founder Lonneke Gordijn will also present a public lecture exploring the tensed and changing relationships between nature, technology, and humanity, on Wednesday, March 30.
DRIFT’s public lecture and student workshop kick off a larger five-year initiative spearheaded by the school’s Interior Design Program to provide ongoing opportunities for students to explore, understand, and celebrate the role of craft and artisanship in interior environments. Funded by Dallas-based interior designer Emily Summers, the initiative will bring recognized leaders and emerging voices in applied arts and design to the school for demonstrations, workshops, and lectures that explore craft, making, and fabrication as areas with profound potential for innovation.
“This initiative will significantly advance our program’s capacity to advance interiors as a cutting-edge field,” said Igor Siddiqui, Director for Interior Design. “The work of Studio DRIFT exemplifies our interest in the synthesis of art, design, and technology as well as in the complex relationship between physical and virtual worlds that define our time.”
The Interior Design Program at The University of Texas School of Austin views its field as truly multi-faceted, with its endeavors yielding tangible consequences for society and the planet. The program’s offerings—including its curriculum, resources, and opportunities—reflect the balance of theoretical and applied knowledge needed for an effective engagement with the world through design; and at the center of the student experience is a sequence of studio courses that serve as laboratories of innovation, creativity, and learning-by-doing.
Launching this semester, the five-year Emily Summers Craft & Artisanship in Interior Design program will support and expand the program’s vision of interiors as an interdisciplinary and hands-on creative practice. By embedding other craft-related arts like furniture design, installation, textiles, and lighting into the educational experience; supporting travel to visit ateliers, workshops, and factories; and funding workshops, lectures, and collaborations with internationally renowned experts in the field, the program will provide each cohort of undergraduate and graduate interior design students with a diverse and hands-on understanding of the expansiveness of interior design as a discipline.
Known for their performative sculptures, interactive installations, and bold collaborations, Studio DRIFT’s work occupies a wholly unique place between the disciplines of tech, art, performance, and biodesign. Since its founding in 2007, the art collective has explored the relationships between nature, humans, technologies, and our environments, often investigating the tension between the real and constructed or virtual world.
“When I look at flowers, animals, trees, rivers—how they behave, how they flow, the choices they make—I get it,” Gordijn said. “But when I look at what people have done and where we seem to be heading—the futile attempt to be in control—I simply get frustrated.”
Gordijn’s public lecture “Connected Experiences” will take place in person on Wednesday, March 30 at 12:30 pm CST in Jessen Auditorium (200 W 21st St, Austin, TX 78712). The lecture is free and open to the public and will also be live-streamed on the Texas Architecture YouTube channel.
