[WIZ* Jour Fixe 1]

*Was ist zeitgemäß? (WIZ) – This question brings together a group of students and teachers from the communication design department of Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle. We question the present day, we question the future: how can communication design respond appropriately to the challenges of today? To discuss current practices and positions, we invited to controversial dialogues.

For the first WIZ* Jour Fixe Claudia Doms and Christopher Lacy were invited to reflect on prevailing working conditions and discuss how collective structures and communities of solidarity can counteract precarious working practices.

Claudia Doms is trained as a stage painter and graphic designer. After graduating from the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, she worked in London with a multitude of collaborators and clients. Since 2017 she has led the second year BA graphic design at BHSAD in Moscow, where she organised several exchange projects (Rietveld.Moscow, We Begin With a Squiggle) between designers in Russia and abroad. In 2019 Doms started a documentary film project about the connection between education and career opportunities, documenting a group of students from Amsterdam and Moscow. Currently Doms teaches graphic design at HGB Leipzig.

Christopher Lacy is is a lecturer and independent designer working across a variety of typo/graphic media, from publications, visual identities, websites, and lettering. But also, writing, editing, and publishing. He was involved in Evening Class, a self organised learning environment, for 3 years, and is currently undertaking an MA in Art and Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2019 he helped set up the trade union Designers + Cultural Workers (branch of United Voices of the World), organising workers across the cultural sector. His research is particularly interested in how practitioners might document and unpack both the historical and contemporary working conditions of designers.