Clara Lobregat Balaguer, School of Design 2015–16 Public Seminar Series

The Office of Culture and Design is a research and project production platform for social practice in art and design. Since 2010, The OCD has funded and organized residencies for artists who wish to immerse in underserved communities. The OCD creates multi-morphous projects that address and unpack social issues. In 2013, The OCD founded its own graphic design studio and imprint, Hardworking Goodlooking, which serves to present the results of their experiments (and those of others) in print and other formats. Both The OCD and HWGL are interested in the decolonisation of Philippine cultural thought, most especially through the lens of the contemporary vernacular.

Clara Lobregat Balaguer is an independent researcher and artist who has learned to do graphic design, used to be in advertising and once hosted shows on national television in the Philippines. In 2010, she founded The Office of Culture and Design, an organization through which she executes social practice projects in culturally underserved communities in the Philippines. She has released one book as author and nine as publisher at the helm of Hardworking Goodlooking, whose publications have been regularly exhibited at the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. She has exhibited artwork at Singapore Art Museum, Casa Asia Madrid, Galeria H2O, Ayala Museum, New York University (NYU), Hangar and La Capella; and has lectured at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Hanyang University Seoul, Triple Canopy, MoMA PS1, Museum of Art and Design (MAD) NY, Ateneo de Manila and University of the Philippines Diliman. 

The UIC School of Design public seminar series serves as a research platform for the school’s MDES program, stimulating broad intellectual inquiry about the values guiding the designer by promoting discourse across industrial and graphic design.

Clara Lobregat Balaguer
The Office of Culture and Design
(Philippines)

Thursday, April 7
6:00–7:30 pm

Second floor design gallery
Architecture and Design Studios
845 West Harrison Street
Chicago

Free and open to the public