Merz Akademie Workshop // Being Yourself! Being Alive!
A workshop influenced by Howard Thurman's quote that "Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. The world needs more people who have come alive”
In this workshop, we focused our attention on our inner world. How we experience the life through our senses was a key to our understanding to happiness. By reanalyzing the meaning of power, fame, love, money etc., we were back to curiosity and purity (childhood). With design method “deconstruction and construction”, participants were directed toward creating a connection (an abstract bridge), which helps to define or fill the void between their instincts and the point where they are now.
2nd Istanbul Design Biennial Academy Programme // INTERNALIZATION through the colors of nature
Our duties to achieve a sustainable world aside, how does the rapid destruction of our natural environment affect us internally? What is our emotional connection with the nature?
In this workshop, participants inspired by their psychological connections to nature. They personalized the topic by researching the experiences that they have been through in both past and present, and have been invited explore a future led by our emotional connection to the nature (rather than a materialistic one). The workshop’s goal was to use to design methods to visualize the topic and provide new psychological insights that will help motivate generations towards environmental sustainability.