Andrea Wilkinson

Profile

BA English, BA Art (Graphic Design) Missouri Southern State University
MA Transmedia, MA Visual Arts; Sint-Lucas Brussel

I am originally from the American Midwest, hailing from a small town in Southwest Missouri. For the past decade my research has lived under a banner I term 'The Response(Ability) of a Designer', which explores the use of design research and methodology to enable designers to respond to problems/issues/opportunities regardless of domain or media. In 2004 I, along with my partner, moved to Hamilton, New Zealand where, for nearly 6 years I worked as Senior Lecturer in Design and Graphic Design Coordinator for the School of Media Arts at the Waikato Institute of Technology. While there I co-developed the internationally touring design exhibition/book The means by which we find our way; Observations on Design. In 2010, I took up a teaching and research position at LUCA School of Arts, MAD-fac in Genk/Hasselt, Belgium where I teach across the Graphic Design and Communications and Media Design departments. In 2012 I launched the international typography and tangible artefact project and book, Keep Delete, turning messages into keepsake which also featured as a parallel event in the contemporary arts festival Manifesta 9. As researcher within the Interactions/Social Spaces Research Group, I am primarily involved in design and healthcare and, since 2011, I have primarily been focusing on designing together and for people with dementia.

Current research interests include: design for healthcare with specific focus on dementia and participatory design. Other research interests include: typography, narrative, experience design in public space, the internet of things, interface design and location-based intereactions.

2015-2018, Robert Bosch Stiftung, Design for the forgotten: educating designers to design together with people with dementia This project will disseminate this expertise of designing together with persons with dementia to design students and design lecturers/professors in Germany. The actions will lead to (1) an engagement of several German design educational programs to take up participatory design together with persons with dementia as a topic of their course, (2) a renewed awareness for involving persons with dementia in the design process at the level of design education.

2014-2016 T(e)Huis, LUCA School of Arts, OPAC project T(e)huis: art and design interventions in residentail care which support the feeling of home for people with dementia personen met dementie te versterken.

2013-2014 DementiaLab; Social Innovation Fund, Flanders Low-technological 'solutions' for people with dementia which support their living at home.

Qualifications

• Postgraduate Degree in Transmedia, Sint-Lukas Brussel
• Masters Degree in Visual Arts, Graphic Design, LUCA School of Arts
• Bachelor of Arts, English
• Bachelor of Arts, Art with emphasis in Graphic Design