Annual Report 2017
Design & Creative Practice
REPORT FORWARD:
Since taking up the role of Director of RMIT’s Design & Creative Practice ECP in February this year, the platform has evolved through a series of university-wide and industry consultations to ensure that key areas of expertise have been identified. This collaborative vision has been important to ensure DCP’s voice is diverse, inclusive and forward-looking.
Design & Creative Practice researchers are inventive, playful, explorative and progressive in their approach to real-world problems that lie at the intersection of digital design, sustainability and material innovation. Focused on critical, agile and interdisciplinary practice-based research, this platform is committed to advancing social and digital innovation, and creating alternative pathways for impact through collaboration.
During 2017 we have developed strategies to ensure that this key strength area for the university is supported towards taking our research into more impactful and applied contexts. Through aligning with the four priority areas, researchers have been able to tap into initiatives such as the Capability Development Fund (CDF) and ECP Opportunity Fund (EOF) to further develop research opportunities in these areas.
The DCP ECP has seen the roll out of many exciting initiatives including the Impact Observatory and the Creative Agency, as well as numerous networks such as the HEALTH network, Design for Wellbeing and Network for Social Practice in Art & Design, to name but a few. In December we host our inaugural meeting for the DCP Sector Advisory Board that will ensure we are industry engaged in everything we do. I would like to thank everyone that has supported the implementation of the DCP and look forward to working together on a future for the platform that highlights social practice, digital innovation, impactful translation and sustainability as core objectives.
Many thanks
Larissa Hjorth
DCP Director
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People
Larissa Hjorth
Distinguished Professor and Director, Design and Creative Practice
School: Enabling Capability Platforms
Larissa Hjorth is a digital ethnographer, artist, Distinguished Professor and director of the Design & Creative Practice ECP platform at RMIT University. With Professor Heather Horst, she co-founded the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC). Previously, Hjorth was Deputy Dean, Research & Innovation, in the School of Media & Communication (2013−2016). Hjorth served on the inaugural Australian Research Council (ARC) Engagement & Impact Pilot study assessment panel for humanities and creative practice.
Hjorth studies the socio-cultural dimensions of mobile media and play practices in the Asia-Pacific region with an emphasis on interdisciplinary, collaborative and cross-cultural approaches. She has published a dozen co-authored books, edited over a dozen Handbooks/Companions and has over 40 journal articles.
More recently, Hjorth’s work has become concerned with how we can bring creative, social and design solutions to the growing ageing populations and, in turn, how we might consider scenarios of what it means to die well. She is also studying how our “more-than-human” companions can teach us about new media in everyday life. Hjorth’s last book, Haunting Hands (Oxford Uni Press) looked at how mobile media is being deployed in situations of grief and trauma, her previous book explored how art practice can teach us new acumen into the climate change debate.
Hjorth’s books include Haunting Hands (with Cumiskey 2017), Screen Ecologies (with Pink, Sharp & Williams 2016), Digital Ethnography (Pink et al. 2016) Mobile Media in the Asia-Pacific (2009), Games & Gaming (2010), Online@AsiaPacific (with Arnold 2013), Understanding Social Media (with Hinton 2013), and Gaming in Locative, Social and Mobile Media (with Richardson 2014).
Design & Creative Practice
Impact Observatory
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RMIT University and the Design & Creative Practice ECP acknowledges the Kulin Nations as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which the University stands. The University respectfully recognises Elders both past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of lands across Australia where it conducts its business, their Elders, Ancestors, cultures and heritage.