Planet B, or the Module for Sustainability and Civilizational Issues, was a temporary space for experimental practice and teamwork at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM). Czech and international students of various artistic or design disciplines were invited to join the program for one semester and dive deep in collaborative work tackling some of the pressing issues of present-day society and environment in an inventive and provocative way. Planet B was lead by designer & theorist Klára Peloušková in collaboration with designer Eduard Herrmann in 2022 and with architect Veronika Miškovičová in 2023.
Find out more under Projects.
Project work on Planet B
Foundational Principles
- Transdisciplinarity: Planet B interconnects creative disciplines developed at UMPRUM as well as other scientific fields and domains of human activity.
- Emphasis on research and process: Project work results in concrete outcomes, however, the process of research and practice is considered more important than the technical execution of the final object.
- Teamwork: Students use the knowledge and skills specific to their discipline, however, the aim is to temporarily “dissolve” these specifics into a new collective creative entity.
- Diffused leadership: Coordinators of the project work involve a variety of mentors from both artistic and non-artistic fields.
- Collaboration with the public and non-profit sector: Partnerships are developed with institutions such as environmental and social NGOs, educational institutions, design and material agencies, libraries, hospitals, prisons, city councils, experimental technology labs etc.
Methodological Essentials
- Productive Naivety: A school is a place to learn and to experiment. We do not need to save the world – instead, we are here to ask relevant, difficult questions and to make bold, provocative propositions.
- Dealing with Complexity: Problems we’re facing are often “wicked”, meaning they can’t be precisely defined and fixed by one-dimensional solutions. Art and design allow for indeterminacy and uncertainty to be acknowledged and for complexity to be navigated with curiosity and unorthodoxy.
- Dealing with Cross-scalarity: Both the past and the future of Planet B transcend us greatly. Large temporal and spatial scales should not be overlooked even in projects that primarily address the local or even the microscopic.
- Systems, Scenarios and Strategic Thinking: Thorough consideration of possible future scenarios makes it possible to uncover ambiguous relationships in complex systems as well as opportunities for strategic decisions.
- Pragmatic Speculation: We approach every speculation as real and inherently political. Every idea has multi-layered implications and we need to take responsibility for any proposition.
