Venue: UC Davis Design Museum and International Center Lobby
Dates: January 21– April 27, 2025
Collaborators: UC Davis Design Museum and Global Affairs
Visual journals are like traditional travel journals, but instead of written entries, they contain sketches, hand lettering, photographs, magazine cutouts, and printed ephemera. Even dirt, waste, and stains are acceptable if they capture a collection of feelings, thoughts, and ideas in a visual form. During the four-week UC Davis summer abroad program Design in Europe students keep a visual journal that responds to the prompt “What is European Design and Culture?” A successful journal shows experimentation and steady progress throughout the program and is filled and bursting at the seams by the last day of instruction.
Now in its fifteenth year, Design in Europe (formally Design in Britain) has created a memorable educational and international travel experience for over 400 students. Traversing the length of Britain with week-long stops in the Netherlands and more recently Iceland, students tackle design projects with local organizations that are socially, and community engaged. During the program student teams generate ideas, study the methods used to display and interpret a depth of historical and contemporary material unique to Europe, and develop design solutions to entertain, inform, and inspire diverse audiences across a range of public environments, settings, and venues.
This exhibition brought together over 80 visual journals dating from 2010–2024. Belonging to former students who participated in the Design in Europe program the journals are a visual feast, not only a treasured travel keepsake, but representative of moments in time, when new experiences, knowledge, and friendships are forged.
UC Davis Design Museum, 80 objects, 900 sq. ft. Co-curator with student team (50%). Lead designer (50%) for exhibition staging, installation working with Trevor Pope-Lance and student team. Completed January 2025.
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