Iain Kerr

About Iain Kerr

Iain Kerr is a designer working at the intersection of creativity, ecology, and emergent systems to make novels worlds possible. His unique approach evolves from over twenty plus years of experimenting across and beyond the zones of Architecture, Design, Ecology, Art, Creativity Studies, Ethnobotany, Food Studies, Systems Thinking, Social Entrepreneurship, Commons Studies and Philosophy. His focus is on designing novel collective processes to transform seemingly intractable problems into problems worth having for worlds worth making.Iain is the Co-Director of the MIX Lab at Montclair State University (Making and Innovating for X). The MIX Lab\'s mission is to foster innovation at all scales.In addition to co-directing the MIX Lab, Iain is a co-founder of the boundary-blurring design consultancy SPURSE and the Emergent Futures Lab. SPURSE has been at the forefront of ecological research, experimental design, and innovation leadership for the last 15 years. While developing ground-breaking ways to probe, catalyze, disrupt and re-imagine systems both large and small, they have collaborated with communities, organizations, and individuals from the high arctic to inner cities neighborhoods in Bolivia. Their award-winning projects reveal an astonishing range of creative solutions to effecting real change: from restaurants, wetlands, wayfinding apps, urban renewal programs, microbiology laboratories, cookbooks, buildings, everyday tools and more.In 2018 Iain and Jason Frasca founded Emergent Futures Lab as a platform for the rethinking of creativity, invention, and change — what they are, how they are realized, and how they can be taught. The Emergent Futures Lab has developed a number of new tools including the Innovation Design Approach. Iain regularly works as a consultant, lecturer and workshop leader on creativity, innovation, and design (MIT, Harvard University, Columbia University, Parsons, Yale, CCA, and RISDI). His most recent research is on developing new models of Innovation that are collective, enactive, materially engaged forms of novel worldmaking: Innovation Design.His work and that of SPURSE and the Emergent Futures Lab has been carried out internationally. His and SPURSE\'s writings have been published in books and journals (Problems & Provocations, Furnitecture, The Interventionists, The Object of Labor, Experimental Geography, The International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Surface, ID, New York Times, Elle, Teme Celeste, Art Papers, Monitor, Interior Design, and Art Journal). Their Latest book is the Eat Your Sidewalk Cookbook.

Experience

1. Research and Design Associate

   Spurse

   Jan 1999 — Present · New York, NY, US

   Research and development of programs to re-compose ecologies at multiple scales. Founding Member. Focus: Commons, Ecosystem Design, Innovation, Workshop Facilitator

Education

• The University of British Columbia

  Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Philosophy

• The University of Texas at Austin

  Master of Architecture (MArch), Architecture

  1997 — 2000

Skills

• Creative Problem Solving
• Printmaking
• Ceramic
• Arts Administration
• Theory
• Digital Photography
• Creativity Skills
• Continental Philosophy
• Writing
• Innovation Consulting
• Arts
• Workshop Development
• Ecology
• Stakeholder Workshops
• Graphic Design
• Public Art
• Urbanism
• Higher Education
• Creativity
• Design Thinking
• Creative Writing
• Museums
• Drawing
• Photography
• Sculpture
• Visual Arts
• Emergence
• Research
• Workshop Facilitation
• Ecological Design
• Multimedia
• Teaching
• Art History
• Publishing
• Art Education
• Lecturing
• Strategic Leadership
• Interior Design
• New Program Development
• Architectural Design