Dr Melanie Sarantou is a post-doctorate researcher in the Funding Profiling 2 Project for the University of Lapland. She designed and exhibited 50 fashion collections during her design career, implementing the ethos that fashion is art. Her collections were exhibited internationally in an array of prestige events, galleries and fashion showcases in Africa, the USA, Europe and Australia. Next to managing a fashion atelier and business for sixteen years, Sarantou also initiated the Fashion course as part of a BA Degree at the University of Namibia, complimented with a decade of fashion design lecturing. The co-founding and directing of a Namibian not for profit craft and design association in 2006, Pambili, that was funded by the Finnish Foreign Ministry for three years, provided a platform to work with more than 750 crafts women and artists across 34 craft communities in regional Namibia. Young urban-based Namibian designers who were empowered through this initiative established SMEs in various design fields, continuing their practices. Sarantou’s PhD in Visual Arts at the University of South Australia mapped Namibian craft and design worlds trough a postcolonial lens. In Australia she managed a five-year (2013-2017) artist exchange program between Namibia and South Australia, known as Art South-South. Additional large scale Australian art projects include Artists from the Edges of the World (2016) and Wai – This is us! (2017). Sarantou’s post-doctorate research (2016-2017) at the University of Lapland focused on the artistic research project Women living on the edges of the world: Margin to Margin, funded by Koneen Säätiö. Fashion, textile, environmental and community art currently shape Sarantou’s creative practices, addressing marginality and feminist perspectives.
WEBPAGES: http://cargocollective.com/melaniesarantou https://margintomargin.com/
Photography by Daria Akimenko (profile photo), Kirsten Wechslberger and Melanie Sarantou
Published by satumiettinen
Satu Miettinen is a professor of service design at the University of Lapland. She works as a dean of the Faculty of Art and Design, For several years she has been working with service design research and authored number of books and research publications in this area. She is working with SINCO service prototyping and simulation research environment. Her research interests are in the areas of service design including the areas of social and public service development, citizen engagement and digital service development. She is a visiting lecturer for service design for PUC in Chile and Hokkaido University in Japan. She is PI and co-ordinator in several national and international service design research projects funded by TEKES (Finnish Fund for Innovation and Technology, European Commision Horizon 2020 MSCA RISE etc.). Satu Miettinen has worked as a visiting professor in Stanford University in USA, Tongji University in China and at the University of Trento in Italy. She also has a strong design research interest for the complex, extreme and marginal contexts. Satu Miettinen is co-ordinating Arctic design lab that is part of DESIS network. Arctic design is looking at design solutions for circumpolar areas and conditions. In the past she has worked in the areas of crafts development, cultural and creative tourism in several international and European Union funded projects during the period 1997–2006.
Satu Miettinen is an active artist and designer in the area socially engaged art and ecofeminist photography. She has a long history in artistic work with Namibian and South African local communities in crafts and design development work in numerous projects: Opuwo-Helsinki-Opuwo (2002), Kwaata-Kosketus (2004), Potentials - design in the field (2006-2007), Lost in Katutura (2010-2012) and My Dream World (2013-2015). These projects have included exhibitions at the Finnish Craft Museum, Helinä Rautavaara Museum, Museum of Cultures, Arktikum Science Centre, Namibian National Gallery and Cape Town City Hall. Lost in Katutura, Kaupungissa vai maalla? ja Itsepäinen shakaali seikkailee -exhibitions were part of official program for World Design Capital Helsinki 2012. My Dream World -project was part of official program for World Design Capital Cape Town 2014. She was managing an artistic research project called Naisia maailman laidalla - margin to margin (2016-2017) funded by Koneen säätiö. This project has included collaboration with Australian aboriginal women artists and exhibitions in Australia and Finland. At the moment she works with Poetic Peripheries collaborative in numerous artistic, residency and exhibition projects.
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