EKA Stand-In School For Graphic Design
Scenography & Furniture Workshop
The Stand-in School for Graphic Design was a six-week free and open educational program which took place in Berlin, Germany, from 5 February until 15 March 2024.
The term ‘stand-in’ refers to taking on the role of someone else for a period of time. Initiated from within the context of official studies at the Masters in Graphic Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Stand-in School for Graphic Design shared the institutional resources of the course by allowing students and participants to utilize it’s infrastructure, shape the curriculum, and themselves shift between the role of student, teacher, host, and organizer.
The primary motivation of the school was to give space for sharing knowledge between students, amateurs, professionals, or anyone who was curious to make imagined possibilities within graphic design education more accessible. The school offered the opportunity for those organizing classes to shape the conditions around learning and focus on topics and methods for exchange which might otherwise be overlooked within their academies.
During the six weeks the school hosted over 60 classes ranging from workshops to lectures to reading groups to screenings and more. Each week was organized around a different theme: Tools / Text & Language / Labour & The Body / Disobedience & Society / School of Alternative Histories / Research. The entire school was free to attend each week from Monday to Wednesday.
The Stand-in School for Graphic Design Berlin was organized, programmed, and hosted by the first-year students from the MA Graphic Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts: Archil Tsereteli, Fatima-Ezzahra El Khammas, Hanafi Gazali, João Pedro Nogueira, Karthik Palepu, Laura Martens, Linnea Lindgren, Rok Ifko Krajnc, Anna Wittenkamp Rich.
The scenography and furniture of the school was conceptualized, designed and built by the first-year students together with Shubham Aggarwal, Andrew Beltran, and Taylor ‘Tex’ Tehan in a week-long workshop facilitated by Studio Manuel Raeder with Objektlabor / Santiago Zamudio and Mendi Glanz. The Stand-in School for Graphic Design was initiated by Sean Yendrys and further developed together with students. The school’s evening programme and publishing is further supervised by Alexandra Margetic.
This project would not be possible without the support of the Design Faculty, Graphic Design Department and International Office at the Estonian Academy of Arts, together with ERASMUS+ Mobility, and Hopscotch Reading Room.
Photographs courtesy of; Manuel Raeder, Sean Yendrys, Hanafi Gazali, Anna Wittenkamp Rich, Andrew Beltran.
