University of the Underground

It is a fact that tuition fees for graduate school have risen by 60% in last decade. The Wall Street Journal also reports that graduates of art schools rack up the most student debt.

The University of the Underground shall make every effort inter alia to attain and accomplish its objectives by:

– guiding and supporting studying artists, performers and designers in order to develop, stimulate and continue the creative process in design, film, music, politics, linguistics and theatre;

– providing study programs in design, film, music, politics, linguistic and theatre;

– financing, subsidizing, supporting and guiding organisations who provide study programs in design, film, music, politics and/or theatre;

– organizing inter alia concerts, symposia, workshops and performances; and

– opening up networks.

As a charity, the University of the Underground is pioneering the ‘100 years of education’ programme in which individuals from both the private and public sector are invited to commit long term- for 100 years- to a better redistribution of wealth. Through the 100 years of education programme, we aim to create an alliance of practices for a more sustainable, diverse leadership which actively support social dreaming and critical thinking. The University of the Underground is founded on a commitment to the future. Our “100 Years of Education Campaign” is also a pledge that our courses will run for 100 years to demonstrate our dedication to achieving long-term change.

Both individuals, philanthropists and private sectors are invited to donate to the charity. While we are actively fundraising in the private and individual sector, we are also fundraising in the public sector through governmental grants.

At the University of the Underground, we believe that a new leadership should be established which is both more diverse, but also which includes creatives at key roles in institutions. We believe in the freedom of learning but also we believe that education should be free to students. We are experimenting with models in order to achieve this.

We are hoping that the 100 years of education programme will one day be certified as a social movement whose stated goal is to help the young generation in countries achieve diversity in leadership, promoting sustainability, critical/ transnational thinking and social dreaming in governments, technological and private sectors.

Our Objectives:
• To offer full scholarships for a free MFA to 1,600 young creative students over the next 100 years

• To expand the University of the Underground into nine new areas around the world including the USA, Europe, South Africa, and Asia

• To pioneer a new, innovative financial model for funding higher education

• To launch an international program of live events, master classes, and digital media on social dreaming to activate the public’s engagement with democratic institutions

• To foster an “Ideas Incubator” generating new groundbreaking models, tools and methods for education, research, and design

• To define a new form of creative leadership who works to modify institutions from within

• To build a global community of educational transnational partners

• To create a space for countercultures to thrive

• To inspire social dreaming in younger generations

We are both an educative structure and a cultural institution supporting unconventional research practices. As such we teach and share multidisciplinary approaches that aim to act as a call for action beyond generations, nation-states, background and individual disciplines.

We are concerned by the act of thinking and its commodities in the twenty-first century. At the University of the Underground charity, we experiment with experiential practices (ie: music, design, film, theatre) to reshape and challenge leadership in institutions and to inspire social dreaming.

You can read more about the unconventional research office in our ABOUT section.

Our multidisciplinary program is designed to define a new form of creative entrepreneurship by providing young artists the tools to start their own practices, fund an independent artistic career, and become the cultural influencers of tomorrow who incite change across industries, governments, and institutions.

You can read the Design of Experiences manifesto and see the structure of the MA design of Experiences into our ABOUT section

The University of the Underground is led by a multidisciplinary team of ‘dreamers of the day’, who believe that positive inspiration and disturbance to the current cultural and educative system is required to best support the young generations in their creative and political endeavours. In the University of the Underground, we are aiming to bring together generations and disciplines in the production and formulation of the institution. In doing so, we believe in the potential for collective poetics and social dreaming in power structures.

The University of the Underground supports unconventional research and practices that apprehend and challenge the formulation of culture, the manufacture, power dynamics and commodities of knowledge. The University of the Underground believes in a transnational form of education, which goes across borders and beyond nation-states.