Design Conference 2009: Main Speaker Announcement

Mario Minichiello is the Head of Department and Chair of Visual Communications programmes at Birmingham City University BIAD, faculty of Art and Design, Britain. He is also a visiting research Fellow at the University of Sydney, School of art. An award winning artist and designer producing both inspirational and often controversial reportage artwork for broadcast media including television, broadsheet newspapers and magazines. Professor Minichiello has recently been a guest on a number of broadcast debates on the role of art in society and has most recently taken part in an interview with Press TV, this was broadcast on a number of international channels including al-Jazeera.

Professor Minichiello’s work for BBC Newsnight¹s coverage of the ŒSpy Catcher trial was described by the leading human rights barrister, and Law Lord Anthony Lester QC: "a political cause célèbre, a clash between Government, the media and the courts - demonstrating for many the need for a Human Rights Act - one of the most memorable contributions were the works by Mario Minichiello." He was been involved in reportage work and academic discourse concerning the Afghanistan conflict, focusing on the impact of conflict on global media networks and its psychological effects on viewers. The resulting work has been featured in a number of academic publications as well as in collections of political and cross cultural art sites around the world. Most recently his work caused controversy when he drew at the APEC international summit as part of his research work with Sydney University School of Arts, a selection of these drawings were published in the Sydney Morning Harold and some original works are in the British Council¹s art collection.

His current research interests include the globalizing affect of visual communications media and the potential empowering nature of handmade art - in particular its ability to reveal and retain cultural identity and communicate human values. He is investigating the application of art and design process to medical and social needs, including the functions of drawing as a mediator for the expression of cultural diversity and as an analytical tool. Publications and website based collections are available at: 
http://domain742622.sites.fasthosts.com/mm2001/index.html and 
http://domain742622.sites.fasthosts.com/artconflict/artfirst.html And at 
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/amd/vortex/wargal.htm

Magda Mostafa is currently an Assistant Professor of Design at the Department of Architectural Engineering, Cairo University where she’s been teaching various courses since 1996. She is also an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the Construction and Architectural Engineering as well as the Performing and Visual Arts Departments at the American University in Cairo, where she helped develop their new program in Architectural Engineering, which was launched in 2007. Magda is the 2008 winner of the Common Ground International Award for Excellence in the Design Field.

She was born and raised in Canada, and later came to Egypt to reside where she received her B.Sc, Msc. and PhD in architecture from Cairo University. Her doctoral dissertation studied architectural design for children with special needs and sensory dysfunctions, with a focus on autism. She’s published various papers and articles on the subject in the National Autistic Society’s Communication magazine, ArchNet-IJAR and Open House International. She is currently working as a special needs design consultant for government and private sector projects in Egypt, the Gulf and Europe, as an associate at the Cairo based architectural firm Progressive Architects. In 2004, in association with Progressive Architects, she completed designing the Advance school for children with autism in Qattemeya, Cairo, which was presented at the World Congress on Autism in Capetown, 2006, and is the first building to be designed based on her “sensory design” theory. For her contribution to special needs she was nominated for the 2005 UNESCO Prize for Research and Training in Special Needs Education for Children. To ensure her research extends beyond the realm of academia and reaches those most in need of it, she also conducts design workshops and seminars for parents and teachers of children with autism through various NGO’s, charity organizations and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood in Cairo.

In addition Magda is an active member of the Union of International Architects and is part of their working group on Architectural Education and Validation, where she has contributed to the development of guidelines for Architectural Research as well as Learning Methods in Architectural Education. She is also active in their Architectural Competitions commission and in 2008 she was nominated as President of the UIA’s International Student Competition Jury. She has also been chosen to sit as the UIA Representative to the Jury for the Lebanese Ministry of Culture’s “House of Arts and Culture” Design Competition, prepared by GAIA-Heritage, to be held in Beirut in 2009.

She is currently authoring, on commission by the architect, a biographical/ architectural review of the life-work of Aga Khan award-winning architect Abdelhalim Ibrahim Abdelhalim, with whom she has worked closely throughout the years and takes much of her inspiration.