Course title:

Tables in Connection: Nutritional Diversity, Linguistic and Cultural Perceptions and Realities

Course description:

As part of a project entitled “Tables en relation” Civic city, our design research institute is currently developing a global atlas of food circulation around the world. As part of this workshop, we would like to focus on South Asia. 
At the core of the project lies food culture. 
The research will include:
• Analysis of ingredients and their origins (agriculture, transportation, distribution), as well as economic aspects, pricing, and sociological contexts.
• Analysis of recipes related to the dish, including their history, symbolism, naming, and evolution.
• Analysis of local rituals connected to the dish, such as narratives and practices that bring communities together around food during festivals or special occasions.
• Analysis of social issues related to the dish (intercommunity encounters, strengthening of social cohesion, food solidarity initiatives, exports, connections with families living abroad, etc.).
• Analysis of the places where these dishes are produced and sold.
This research phase must take place prior to the workshop itself, so that the workshop can be fully dedicated to the visual representation of the collected data. 
Students will translate this information into infographics, drawings, and photographs that they design themselves. 
The objective is to explore how such complex data can be communicated visually while highlighting the most essential information.
Each student group will be given three double-page spreads of an atlas, whose format and certain typographic rules will be predefined. 
As the workshops progress, the data and narratives will intersect and complement one another, ultimately forming a collective book on food customs in South Asia and other regions on the world.

Bio:

Ruedi Baur, a French Swiss graphic designer renowned for his work in contemporary art publishing, signage, scenography, social design, and environmental design. After creating and directing the “Integral Ruedi Baur” studios in Paris, Berlin, and Zurich from 1989 to 2023 and the transdisciplinary network “Integral Concept” (1989-...), in 2004, together with sociologist Vera Baur and philosopher Clemens Bellut, he founded the “Design2context” research institute in Zurich (2004-2011), then the independent action research institute in design “Civic city” (2011-...), and finally the young university start-up "Dix-milliards-humains " (2019,...) which he runs alongside Vera Baur.
Since the 1980s, Ruedi Baur has been thinking about his work as a graphic designer in the context of public space. Initially working for numerous cultural institutions in the Lyon region, in the 1990s he organized a cross-disciplinary course at Ensba in Lyon based on the concepts of “space-information,” followed by a postgraduate course entitled “Civic Spaces and Design.” This theme has occupied him in more ways than one. He works on issues related to identification, orientation, scenography, and more broadly, the representation of institutions, urban spaces, and political territories, often alongside architects and urban planners. He advocates interdisciplinary design and, in 1989, alongside Pipo Lionni and Philippe Delis, created the Integral workshop network and his own studio: Integral Ruedi Baur, Paris and Zurich.
Since the 1990s, he has taught transdisciplinary design at various schools: - École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, where he heads the “Space/Information” department, - Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, where he became Professor of “System Design” before being appointed Rector of the school, - Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, where he created and directed the Design2context research institute. - Laval University in Quebec awarded him honorary doctorates. - He taught and developed research activities at the Geneva University of Art and Design, where he directed the Civic City Institute and the postgraduate program in Civic Design. - at the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris; - at Folkwang University in Essen, where he directs the Institute for Transdisciplinary Design: Heterotopia; - at the University of Strasbourg, where he obtained his doctorate in 2019 with a thesis entitled: “Between Identity and Identification: The Civic Values of Territorial Representation Systems.” Although his permanent teaching position ended in 2023, since then he has led numerous workshops in art and design schools in Italy, Germany, Canada, Poland, and France on themes launched by Civic City: - “Places in relation,” “Inscriptions in relation,” “Scuola del non sapere,” and “Tables in relation.”