Abstract

In order to experiment, learn, and successfully fail at design education, we carried out a seven-month experimental seminar at the University of Ljubljana, Academy of Fine Arts and Design. The central aim of the seminar was to establish a discontinuity with the self-evident and the immutable. We derived our methodology from Jacques Rancière’s emancipatory theory of the “ignorant schoolmaster.” We took the risky path consciously, in order to prove that successful failure can only be achieved if we dare to take risks in the process of exploration. Those who take risks and successfully fail in the process—by establishing their own way of thinking and critically reflecting on discovery and failure—start generating new insight and eventually become the creators of new knowledge.