Design+Science Summer School: Wet Dreams – Sea in Us
Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana (UL ALUO) together with the Association for Culture and Education PiNA, Department of Visual Communications Design at the Arts Academy (University of Split) and Institute Joanneum of the University of Applied Sciences Graz, is organizing the sixth edition of Design+Science Summer School.
From 6th to 10th of July 2026 in Piran and Portorož, Slovenia, we will gather participants from all over the world to explore the topic Wet Dreams – Sea in Us.
Contrary to common belief, we are all made of sea. Our blood runs salty, our cells are suspended in fluid, and somewhere in our deep evolutionary past, we left the water – but the sea never left us. We have learned to treat the sea as a dump, a resource, a postcard – anything but the system we come from. Rising waters, acidification, and collapsing ecosystems are not distant events. They are feedback. This summer school does not aim to fix the ocean. Instead, we approach it as a thinking partner – a 3.8 billion-year-old, self-regulating, interdependent system that has outlasted any model we have built. Marine science can measure the change. Design, art, and the humanities can shift the imagination behind them. Neither is enough alone.
The D+S Summer School is an experiential teaching methodology that relies on interdisciplinary integration among students from the arts, humanities, and scientific disciplines. This is facilitated through group work, learning through practice, and condensed, interactive learning that also includes peer learning at its core. The implementation of the Summer School is designed so that participants continuously interact with each other, with experts, and with the organizers from morning to evening, enabling transdisciplinary interaction throughout the entire school.
The school is conducted in English and is open to MSc and PhD students as well as young professionals from diverse backgrounds – natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and design.
The participation fee includes accommodation, meals, all materials, and excursions.
Apply directly at https://bitly.cx/dZHeW and find more information at www.designscience.school
Contact: design.science@pina.si