Dezeen School Shows: a project exploring the sustainable benefits of eating insects instead of traditional meat is included in this school show by Linnaeus University in Sweden.

Also included is a scheme that promotes the mending of clothing and a series of pieces that explore and celebrate the role of craft in sustainable culture.

Linnaeus University

Institution: Linnaeus University
School: Faculty of Arts and Humanity, Department of Design
Course: BFA Design + Change, BFA Visual Communication + Change, MFA Design + Change
Tutors: Anthony Wagner, Daniel Gustafsson, Åsa Ståhl, Anna-Karin Arvidsson, Eric Snodgrass, Matilda Plöjel, Olga Nikolaeva, Cassandra Troyan, Mirai Nemoto, Linda Hilfling Ritasdatter, Ola Ståhl and Nina Paim

School statement:

"Today, it is both formally and globally recognised that both ecological and social systems are in a critical state.

"We also know that human activities, not least design and its associated overconsumption, drive unsustainability. With + Change, we want to emphasise the potential of design to affect change and extend it. + Change comprises different perspectives on change, such as adaptation, evolution and revolution.

"For us, + Change very much includes examining, challenging and changing the norms that shape the everyday life of individuals as well as society at large.

"Affecting change through design can be about initiatives directed at products, systems or worldviews. We can choose to use design to affect change locally, regionally or globally, and with a focus on ecology, economy, human health and equality, or all of them simultaneously.

"Altogether, + Change is about purposefully using design and its inherent creativity to achieve changes towards the future of sustainability.

"+ Change is not only about what we study and why, it is also about how we do it. Its pedagogy brings design, artistic expression and theory together. We believe we need students and staff groups to genuinely engage with the complexity of sustainability in an interdisciplinary manner.

"Therefore, we have chosen to have an international intake on all our programmes and to deliver them in English.

"Together we make a + Change culture – dynamic, vibrant, creative and critical."

Exploring with the Non-Human by Thelma Cervin

"This project aims to introduce non-human perspectives. It manifested a children's toolkit for thinking with nature, which bring a non-human perspective to children.

"The toolkit includes everything a teacher might need to introduce and explore a non-human perspective with children of kindergarten age.

"It was developed in collaboration with a teacher and tested with children in kindergarten."

Student: Thelma Cervin
Course: BFA Design + Change
Tutors: Anthony Wagner, Daniel Gustafsson and Åsa Ståhl

Witchcraft Futuring: The Knowledge Below The Surface by Smaranda Sirbu

"Witchcraft was never about fighting evil or resisting the devil. It was and still is a patriarchal tool for oppressing vulnerable communities, especially women.

"This design project manifests a reclamation of witchcraft for female empowerment and explores the complexity of witchcraft, focusing on the socio-cultural and ecological levels.

"Sirbu's purpose with this design project is to empower women to reclaim witchcraft in their own way and manifest their multifaceted independence through curiosity, experimentation and speculation, especially within environmental science and ecological curiosity."

Student: Smaranda Sirbu
Course: BFA Design + Change
Tutors: Anna-Karin Arvidsson, Åsa Ståhl and Eric Snodgrass

Mending On Display by Allis Ohlsson

"Mending On Display explores how to involve people in mending clothes and incorporate it into everyday life. This was done through mending workshops and investigative conversations, as well as a window display exhibiting visibly mended clothes in the secondhand store Busfrö Nytt & Bytt in Kalmar.

"By putting mending on display and forcing it to take up more visual space in our society, more people can be intrigued to using mending as an everyday tool.

"Using visible mending techniques as a method of doing this, Ohlsson wants to push for a change in fast fashion culture, pushing for repairs to be the new (old) norm."

Student: Allis Ohlsson
Course: BFA Visual Communication + Change
Tutors: Matilda Plöjel, Olga Nikolaeva, Cassandra Troyan and Mirai Nemoto

Disrupting Hustle Culture by Ellyn Casali

"Disrupting Hustle Culture is a candid exploration into the topic of hustle culture from Casali's perspective of producing an animated short film, Pursuit.

"Tangible change can be made in the world to mend our relationship with time when we start to devalue the dominant western work ethos that prioritises speed and efficiency and instead prioritise more sustainable perspectives towards productivity."

Student: Ellyn Casali
Course: BFA Visual Communication + Change
Tutors: Matilda Plöjel, Olga Nikolaeva, Cassandra Troyan and Mirai Nemoto

What a Disgusting Thing to Eat by Viivi Pitkänen

"This project questions our meat-eating habits and moralities towards different animals through the investigation of attitudes towards edible insects from a western viewpoint.

"This was done through illustration in different formats; posters, stickers and a comic to explore the attitudes, morals and our current meat consumption.

"Some of the core questions explored through illustration and storytelling in this project are, why do we see some animals as friendly companions, such as dogs and cats, but other animals, like cows and pigs, can be eaten?

"What differentiates cows from insects and why are cows more edible than insects to people in western countries?"

Student: Viivi Pitkänen
Course: BFA Visual Communication + Change
Tutors: Cassandra Troyan, Matilda Plöjel and Olga Nikolaeva

Inqueeries of Space by Leo Hosp

"While public spaces should be safe for everyone, this is not always the case.

"Instead, public spaces are often designed by and for the 'human default', which can be described as white, heterosexual, cisgender, male, able-bodied and monogamous.

"In Hosp's project Inqueeries of Space, they addressed how heteropatriarchal and misogynistic structures show within public spaces, making those spaces hostile for everyone who deviates from the human default.

"They investigated how queering can be developed as a practice and tool that helps in working towards intersectionally inclusive spaces."

Student: Leo Hosp
Course: BFA Visual Communication + Change
Tutors: Matilda Plöjel, Olga Nikolaeva, Cassandra Troyan and Mirai Nemoto

Exploring Cultural Heritage and Solidarity Through Design by Bashar Lubbad

"The design research investigates the multifaceted interplay between culture and design within the context of settler colonialism in occupied Palestine.

"Its core objective is to underscore the profound influence of visual storytelling in expressing cultural subtleties and fostering genuine empathy and solidarity.

"An essential aspect of the research explores the role of fear in feeling misrepresentations and the subjugation of Palestinians.

"To understand their experiences comprehensively, this exploration considers the historical, social, and political elements that have sculpted the Palestinian narrative.

"The research further scrutinizes the capacity of design to nurture cultural identity and champion precise representation, emphasizing the significance of addressing the obstacles introduced by oppression and cultural erasure."

Student: Bashar Lubbad
Course: MFA Design + Change
Tutors: Linda Hilfling Ritasdatter and Ola Ståhl

Straying together: intersectional feminist fashion design in the climate emergency by Ashleigh Spooner

"We are straying together from a normative fashion design practice.

"Woven into the fabrics, products and services – the basic structure of the dominant fashion system – are colonial legacies of exploitation and ecological destruction.

"Trained as a fashion designer, Spooner has been searching for other ways to continue working with clothes in the context of the climate and ecological emergency.

"In this collaborative project, she finds an auspicious starting point: aligning design practice with intersectional feminist politics."

Student: Ashleigh Spooner
Course: MFA Design + Change
Tutors: Linda Hilfling Ritasdatter, Ola Ståhl and Nina Paim

Handmade Stories by Camilla Uhlén

"Handmade Stories is about giving insights into crafts through the voices of others.

"These stories share how sewing a piece of clothing from an old sheet can bring confidence to build a house, how using a handmade dish towel and hearing knitting needles can bring connections across generations, how wood from a single tree, wool from a herd of sheep and clay from the roots of the forest can bring relationships between people and nature.

"The project explores how craft can bring connections between people and nature for sustainability, by asking: what is the story of something handmade that you value?"

Student: Camilla Uhlén
Course: BFA Design + Change
Tutors: Anna-Karin Arvidsson, Åsa Ståhl and Eric Snodgrass

My snus handbook – Rethinking the lifestyle related to nicotine pouches by Heikki Huhtala and Smilte Tarvydaite

"This collaborative design project uses methods of human-centred design and visual communication to help female students who use white snus – a pouch-based tobacco product –to rethink, question and reflect on the lifestyle and emotions associated with nicotine pouches.

"The outcome of this project is a handbook that contains self-reflective exercises, as well as thoughts and experiences of female white snus users.

"The project is made in collaboration with female students who use nicotine pouches, a public health developer and a dental hygienist."

Student: Heikki Huhtala and Smilte Tarvydaite
Course: BFA Visual Communication + Change
Tutors: Cassandra Troyan, Matilda Plöjel and Olga Nikolaeva

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Linnaeus University. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.