In times of rising far-right movements across Europe and the world, where wars, hatred and annihilation are streamed live onto our phones, the question becomes urgent: what can we oppose this with? Not only responding, not only reacting.

We believe in the simple power of coming together and creating spaces where differences are acknowledged and embraced. These are spaces where we can disagree, but never forget that respect and care form the basis of our interactions.

„The challenge lies in altering prevalent practices that rely on (bad) habits, (mere) opinions, and (prejudiced) clichés. It’s a question of how to circumvent the empty platitudes you use to sooth yourself in the face of radical contingency as you struggle within your local universe of values, especially when it turns out, after all, to be wildly unpredictable. To take a risk, but also to take care.“ 1

Do What You Want has now been a place where critical thinking meets space production for almost ten years. As we like to say: radically individual yet rooted in collaboration. We support your ideas collectively throughout the semester, exploring different research methodologies.

This semester, we are actively seeking new references, overlooked allies and neglected practices. How can we move beyond the circle of efficiency, productivity, extraction and competition that is often entrenched in our discipline and shift our focus to the 'make differently'?

Do What You Want is a support structure for your research and interests. It requires commitment and openness; it requires unlearning, stepping outside your comfort zone and supporting others in doing so.

During our weekly collective review sessions, we encourage you to unlearn the notion of feedback.

How can you resist the impulse to give an opinion and instead try to listen deeply and simply ask questions?

As the performance artist Anna Ádám says in her School of Disobedience: 'The work doesn't need opinions. It needs time.' 2

We meet in Studio 401 every Wednesday all day. Each week, we take time to review your individual works in the form of colloquium-style meetings, quick pin-ups and detailed presentations. Everyone participates in the discussion. Since it is summer, we would sometimes like to move out of the classroom and let different surroundings inspire our conversations.

Discursive dinners and other forms of hospitality are an integral part of our course.

The collaborative efforts of three groups – the space and curation group, the documentation and dissemination group, and the communication group – help us to build relationships that extend beyond individual design tasks.

Building on the experience of last semester's one-week excursion to the Blue Horse artistic residency space in northern Berlin, we are planning a shared intensive long weekend in Brandenburg from 14 to 17 May. This will be an artistic residency where you can work on your individual projects in a focused atmosphere. It is an opportunity to focus, get to know each other, and share the organisation of a daily routine, and therefore to care for one another. Details will follow!

As anthropologist and activist David Graeber and artist Nika Dubrovsky wrote in their series of books „Made Differently“: „we are thought to accept the world as it is as its only possible version, but what if the world is actually something that we make, and it could be made differently, and „overcome the suspicion, instilled in us every day, that life is necessarily limited, miserable and boring?“ 3

Participation is limited to 12 students.

We meet every Wednesday from 10:00 to 18:00 in Studio 401 (any changes due to committee work will be communicated).

The first meeting, for a brief review of your project proposals to be developed during the semester, will take place on Tuesday the 14th of April at 15:30 in Studio 401.

DWYW Intense: tbd

Modules: primarily Master’s, MA Modul 01 / 04 + BA Modul 13
 

We have already received emails from students interested in participating in 'Do What You Want'. Please register on Moodle anyway!

1 How to make yourself a Feminist Design Power Tool, Hélène Frichot, AADR, 2016

2 The School of Disobedience from performance artist and Budapest based educator Anna Ádám on the Hidden Dangers of Feedback: „Feedback can normalize.
It brings the work closer to what is already known, already readable, already acceptable. Toward coherence. Toward something that fits.
But what if the work does not want to fit?
What if its strength lies precisely in its inconsistency, its opacity, its refusal to resolve?
Feedback tends to smooth edges.
And sometimes, those edges are the work.“

3 Cities made differently, David Gareber and Nika Dubrovsky, MIT Presss Cambridge Masaschussetts, 2025