AFFECTIVE GRAPHIC DESIGN is an international conference centering on the dialogues between visual arts and graphic design. Organized by Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam and co-presented with Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, the program includes two online events and four live programs and involves more than 20 speakers from The Netherlands and abroad. Whether live or online, all events will be held in English on CEST at Kunstinstituut Melly and will be live-streamed by this institution and its partner, Jan van Eyck. Here is the program for the second of two days of this international conference; please note that there is a 30-minute coffee break between each session.
KEYNOTE: Two of Three Things I know about Mary
Online lecture by Nina Paim
This lecture chronicles a savage detective tracing the footsteps of the Brazilian-born, Basel-based artist, designer, and educator Mary Vieira. Vieira’s oeuvre spans dimensions as well as scales, and comprises small- and large-scale sculptures, exhibition and landscape design, but also books, prints, posters, and more. Although her body of work is still largely under-recognized, today she is mostly known for her kinetic works and sculptures that invite a direct manipulation by the audience, which she already started making back in the 1940s in Brazil. With this lecture, we depart from the Basel University Library, where the public sculpture polyvolume: hexagonal, meta triangular itinerary of tactile communication stands since 1968, and meander through Berlin, Belo Horizonte, and beyond, mixing geographies, scales and mediums, as we follow the various outputs of this little-known, self-proclaimed «Braslerin».
To deliver this lecture, Nina Paim connects online from Basel, Switzerland. Re-watch the keynote from anywhere here.
PANEL: De-modernizing Visual Culture
IRL conversation
Moderated by Yin Yin Wong, this panel gathers graphic designers Amy Suo Wu, Loraine Furter, Garine Gokceyan, and Kristyan Sarkis to discuss efforts in de-modernizing visual culture through typography and type design.
Re-watch the panel from anywhere here.
KEYNOTE: Dear Karel: On Design and Interdependence
IRL lecture by Prem Krishnamurthy
One of the most iconic creative figures in the Netherlands, Karel Martens (b.1939) is widely recognized for his work across books, installations, and printed matter of all kinds. In this personal take, Prem Krishnamurthy frames Martens’ recent output in light of its multiple interdependencies—with collaborators, contexts, sites, and even the very paper he uses. Questioning the idea of graphic design as an impartial frame, an experimental format seeks to open up new readings into Martens’ multivalent practice.
Re-watch the keynote from anywhere here.
PANEL: Collective Design
IRL and online conversation
Moderated by Jeroen Lavèn, and including a video clip by Robert Jonathan Koeyers, this program presents two design teams: one is the student collective Studio 4oo2 in Jakarta, who designed the visual identity for Documenta 15 in Kassel; the second is the group of graphic designers from Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem who created the visual identity of Kunstinstituut Melly this year, represented in this program by Callum Dean, Wooseok Jang, Nina Schouten, and Yan Zhihan. Both teams speak of their commissions and working processes.
Re-watch the program from anywhere here.
PANEL: Beyond Identities
IRL conversation
What place does designing graphic identities (still) have in contemporary design practice? In a panel moderated by Clara Balaguer, Sophie Douala, Cengiz Mengüç, and Team Thursday will discuss identities in the broadest sense of the word: from corporate to cultural, from institutional to the self.
Re-watch the panel from anywhere here.
Bios of all PARTICIPANTS are included here, below, just click on their names for details.
Admission is free to all events of the AFFECTIVE GRAPHIC DESIGN conference, however, seating reservation and/or online registration is required. The live programs require a valid corona admission certificate (a vaccination certificate, negative test certificate, or proof of recovery). For more information, please visit this website.
AFFECTIVE GRAPHIC DESIGN is organized by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy and Pilar Mata Dupont, and developed together with Yin Yin Wong. It is presented on the occasion of Kunstinstituut Melly’s website launch and new graphic identity designed by Emily Turner, Callum Dean, Yan Zhihan, Wooseok Jang, and Nina Schouten through a Collective Learning in Practice program by the institution in collaboration with Werkplaats Typografie Arnhem and Wkshps Berlin/New York.