Department: MA-coordinator for Design
E-mail: Johann.Sagan@uib.no
Johann (Hans) Sagan is an Associate Professor of Design and the Master Program Coordinator at the Department of Design at the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen. He holds a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of California – Berkeley, and degrees in communication studies and cultural studies from the University of North Carolina and the University of Minnesota.
The MA thesis is a critical element in professional development. It is the time when long-held ideas are challenged, and cherished beliefs and favored styles are critiqued and often abandoned. Growth and maturing into a master designer means to “kill your darlings”, as the saying goes. What emerges from the master thesis process then is not the raw sketches or vague outline of a broad idea, but a specific, in-depth, insightful, and well-considered step into a larger professional world. Each project is a deliberate movement forward, a development from initial inklings to a claim of authorial intention. The students have come to own their ideas and to make them clear and bold. After seeing each project over the last two years as a collection of little details and problems and hard moments and late nights, it is truly inspiring to see whole projects realized. The depth of work that each student has completed is humbling.