Greg Nemes is a designer, graduate student, educational entrepreneur, and a tri-athlete. But if you asked the Rhode Island School of Design, GSA Vice President he wouldn’t mention any title. Instead, he shares; “I build platforms and systems for creative collaboration.” Nemes has spearheaded many projects that are quickly changing the way that students are learning at the nation’s top art school. The key to his ventures like RISDQuickies and The Workshop Lab is found in it’s peer to peer education model. I catch up with Greg to chat about accessible education.
“Systems.” x Greg Nemes, Angela Ferraiolo and Ben Nicholson. (Installation.)
On Display: Brown University Center for the Creative Arts Opening Ceremony Exhibition, Providence RI, 2011.
“The system routes and subverts communication between the two modules, providing unique and convoluted interactions.”
JP: If you can successfully open up the education model so that it is supported by peer to peer interactions, then what becomes the role of academic institutions like RISD?
GN: Love the question, because its one of the most important questions that peer to peer and open education models can ask. Academic institutions are often bound in tradition and are at risk for becoming stagnant. An open education model challenges an academic institution and its students, faculty, and administration to think critically about the role of the institution. The institutions role will remain to educate its students and prepare them for a career – but new ways of thinking will be formulated through a critical examination of the relevance of the institution. Any institution, organization, no matter how big or small, should always be ready to ask “what is our role in (education) society.”
JP: There is very little precedent for your approach to education. This shows in your personal RISD journey where your role oscillates between student/teacher/administrator. How do you ensure that this is all productive rather than unfocused or diluted?
GN: I consider my work to be, at its most simple, creative problem solving. That is, thinking in terms of flexible systems to solve complex problems in a contextual manner. My work is also about collaboration, across disciplines, modes of thought, roles, and users. By developing an understanding of a certain context, and culture, a designer can develop unique ways of tackling a problem. Take the three examples you gave of student, teacher, and administrator. As a student, I approach my design work in a collaborative manner, using the diverse skills of the people I work with, along with mine, to generate something that was not possible on our own. As a teacher – I think of teaching as a form of collaboration, where I can learn from students… In my administrative work I try to connect people.
“Human Topological Transformations.” x Greg Nemes (Maya, Rhino, custom software)
On Display: The Body, Gelman Gallery Rhode Island School of Design, Providence RI, 2011.
Explorations of topological form – implications, techniques, modes. These pieces look at the fragility, fear, beauty, and mystery that inhere in both complex mathematical operations and the human body.
JP: Is the flexibility of user roles applied in your education reform adaptable to other sectors such as Government, Health, Law?
GN: Absolutely – bringing people across sectors to work together is more important than ever before, and more possible than ever before. In my approach to working across disciplines and across boundaries, I find that you have to build a common language between diverse backgrounds. Understanding a group of users and participants takes time and a lot of digging, but its completely possible. As designers, we should work to spread the ideas of design systems thinking and cross disciplinary collaboration.
JP: What needs to happen to make that transition possible?
GN: More open culture platforms. Open education is a step in the right direction, but we need to bring that across our culture. In an open education system, people are pushed to be self-authored and self-directed. We need more people thinking like that, ready to contribute to whatever their field might be.
“Urban Organism” Rhode Island School of Design. Architecture Department, 2010.
“This project explores the conditions of our contemporary urban systems, specifically social, infrastructural and building systems – as they relate to their social context. Our society has become increasingly disjointed – across demographics, neighborhoods, and cities. My argument is for a new kind of integration. An integration of neighborhoods through bridge networks. An integration of demographics through community engagement. An integration of infrastuctural systems through intelligent and adaptive building systems.”
Reference:
Quick Play: The Return of RISD Quickies
Quickies are Quick and Good.
Tags: Angela Ferraiolo, Ben Nicholson, greg nemes, open education, RISD, RISD Quickies, Workshop Lab
This entry was posted on Friday, May 20th, 2011 at 1:48 pm and is filed under crowdsourcing, open education, peer to peer learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 21st, 2011 at 12:08 am
GN- This is very disheartening, I would hope that if you are really invested in an open education model and the gravitas of this endeavor then perhaps you could move beyond a series of generic cultural “buzz” words and bring some meaning to this project. Meaning, the role of the middle man has been around for years what else can you do?
May 21st, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Hey thanks for sharing your thoughts. The model that GN is talking about is a student initiated grassroots event at an art school. This isn’t talking national reform but local solutions. GN’s solution has helped many student at RISD learn basic skills outside of their major – from wood block printing to rhino scripting. I think to say that there isn’t tremendous potential to starting many of these projects is silly and limiting. Instead I would like to hear more positive feedback – What would you do? Where would you like to see it go? How can this be implemented elsewhere? Can it be scaled?