Construct Your Humanism – 2020 Summer Session Report

Since the early 1990s the School for Designing a Society has offered intensive summer programs on the land in West Virginia.

Inspired by the Gesundheit vision of community as health care, we offered a crash course on dreaming of social change while enjoying waterfalls, woods, fireflies, and communal meals. This past July–still inspired by that vision–we offered a two-week intensive online. Some 30 participants in six time zones met daily for informal ‘coffee klatsch’ conversations, presentations on desire and design, and intimate design groups.

At the end the groups showed traces of their work: breaking grammar, studying activism, devising wild online theater, and reflecting on care vs incarceration. Certainly something of the in-person was lost; nonetheless something else–curiosity? belonging? defiant encouragement?–was created.