Design Education Talks Ep. 69 – Shalini Prasad

Lefteris Heretakis

Lauren Alexander – Designing with Care, Complexity, and Responsibility – Design Education Talks

Lauren Alexander is an artist, educator, and researcher whose practice operates at the intersection of design, critical inquiry, and collective work. Born in South Africa in 1983 and now based in the Netherlands, her trajectory reflects a sustained engagement with questions of power, history, and representation. Trained originally as a graphic designer, Alexander has gradually expanded her practice beyond service based design, developing a research led approach that uses storytelling, archives, and collaboration as tools for cultural and political reflection She is currently co head of the Bachelor Graphic Design programme at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague where she works alongside Chantal Hendriksen to shape the strategic direction of contemporary design education. Between 2017 and 2024, she developed and taught Critical Storytelling in the MA Non Linear Narrative programme, a course centred on collaborative research methodologies and the examination of complex socio political contexts. Across her teaching, Alexander emphasises uncertainty, ethical responsibility, and critical literacy, encouraging students to engage deeply with both material and digital cultures rather than seeking quick or resolved outcomes Alongside her academic role, Alexander is co founder of Foundland Collective, a long term collaborative practice established in 2009 with Syrian designer Ghalia Elsrakbi. Foundland’s work investigates political narratives, migration, and media representation through art, design, writing, and video, and has been recognised internationally through fellowships, awards, and exhibitions at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Ars Electronica, and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Together, Alexander’s educational and artistic practices articulate a vision of design not as neutral problem solving, but as an ethical and cultural practice embedded in history, power, and lived experience Find more about her work here https://www.kabk.nl/en/teachers/lauren-alexanderhttps://foundland.info/Support the showSince its inception in 2019, Design Education Talks podcast has served as a dynamic platform for the exchange of insights and ideas within the realm of art and design education. This initiative sprang from a culmination of nearly a decade of extensive research conducted by Lefteris Heretakis. His rich background, intertwining academia, industry, and student engagement, laid the foundation for a podcast that goes beyond the conventional boundaries of educational discourse.See all of our work on on https://linktr.ee/thenewartschoolFollow us on twitter at @newartschoolRead our latest articles at https://newartschool.education/and https://heretakis.medium.com/Equipment used to produce the podcast:Rodcaster pro IIRode NT1 5th generationElgato Low profile Microphone ArmMonster Prolink Studio Pro microphone cableThe rest of the equipment is here 👉https://kit.co/heretakis/podcasting
  1. Lauren Alexander – Designing with Care, Complexity, and Responsibility
  2. Design as Experience: Ksenija Miļča on Interiors, Branding and Education
  3. The Education of Attention: Esen Karol on Design, Publishing and Joy Teaching Designers to See: A Conversation with Esen Karol
  4. Simon Collins – What Design Schools Get Wrong About the Real World
  5. Graham Fink – Why Process Matters More Than Finish in Creative Work

Shalini Prasad is an educator, integrative designer, brand consultant, and graphic artist. She runs her own design practice under DeSha Consulting and teaches visual communication and typography at the College of Art and Design at Lesley University. In addition to her professional and academic roles, she is a classical trained dancer, and actor. She loves traversing the many modalities of the creative arts along with the performing arts and believes that each informs the other, fuelling her overall nebulous, no man’s lands, trans-disciplinary artistic ideology (that she has finally made peace with! 🙂

Shalini’s collaborative and inclusive methodology enable her to seamlessly grasp, traverse, and interpret various modalities of design in both two and three dimensions, while fearlessly dismissing conventional boundaries, whether she is designing a brand,  a space, or a curriculum. With over twenty years of diverse experience, an interdisciplinary education in architecture, graphic design and art, she demonstrates a deep passion for storytelling and an innate artistic and analytical sensibility, whether she is studying the minutiae of typography with her students or designing larger movements of design in space for her clients.

Shalini moved to the US twenty years ago from India, having lived in 15 cities including England, the Middle East, and the US, with Boston as her home for the past three. You can find her in a happy trance doing the following: improv cooking, singing, home decorating, doing word games, running, playing the guitar, solving math riddles and reading memoirs.

https://www.de.shacreative.net/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaliniprasadatdesha/Support the show

Follow us on twitter at @newartschool
Visits us on https://linktr.ee/thenewartschool
Read our latest articles at https://heretakis.wordpress.com/
and https://heretakis.medium.com/

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Published by Lefteris Heretakis

Navigating you through the disruption in #art, #design and #designeducation.

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