HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL at the HSE St. Petersburg International Partner Week

From May 18 to 22, HSE University in St. Petersburg hosted its International Partner Week, bringing together representatives from 45 universities across 20 countries. The HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL presented the outcomes of its international projects, shared updates on academic mobility, and announced new educational initiatives.

For the School, the week served as a dynamic hub for international collaboration — ranging from the Culture Mirror student exhibition and the India-focused Blow Horn project, to discussions on how artificial intelligence is transforming the design profession. It was a space both to showcase completed work and to lay the groundwork for initiatives launching in the next academic year.

On May 19, the Culture Mirror exhibition opened at the Cable Factory (HSE St. Petersburg campus). The exhibition marked the culmination of an international competition co-hosted by the HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL, École Intuit Lab, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Featuring over 120 students from Russia, France, China, India, and Brazil, the project challenged participants to select an iconic foreign film and design a brand identity for it — one that captured both its plot and its broader cultural significance.

The exhibition featured the works shortlisted by the jury. The winners — one from each participating country — will be announced in June. The prize is a one-week cultural trip to one of the partner cities: Paris, St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, or São Paulo. The exhibition itself will also go on tour, with plans to travel to all participating universities over the coming year.

“One of the most significant outcomes of the International Partner Week for the HSE Art and Design School is undoubtedly the conclusion of one of our most ambitious competitions,” said Mitya Kharshak, Head of the HSE Art and Design School in St. Petersburg. “Culture Mirror brought together students from five countries: Russia, France, Brazil, India, and China. We’ve been working on it for almost a year, ever since the 2025 International Partner Week.

We also signed an agreement with École Intuit Lab, a major international design school. They are now an official partner, meaning we will begin developing joint courses and unlocking new academic mobility opportunities for our students.”

At the opening ceremony of the International Partner Week, held at the Sergey Kuryokhin Center for Contemporary Art, Mitya Kharshak and a team of students presented Blow Horn — a research book and a documentary film created during an elective course in collaboration with Lovely Professional University (LPU).

The project explores the visual culture of Indian commercial trucks, hand-painted typography, and traditional Indian motifs. After spending an academic module studying these phenomena, the students traveled to the state of Punjab in February. There, they met with fellow designers at LPU, hosted a series of masterclasses, and experienced the local visual environment firsthand. The trip culminated in HSE students creating original hand-painted designs for the vehicles on the LPU campus.

Blow Horn was HSE’s first experiment with a new format of international project-based collaboration. Unlike traditional academic mobility, where students spend a semester at a partner institution, this model is built around joint university projects and cultural exchange. Six more partner universities are planning to launch similar projects in the near future.

“Next year, we plan to expand this international elective, as the results of our Blow Horn pilot received an incredibly enthusiastic response from our university colleagues,” Kharshak noted. “We will be developing this format — dubbed the International Branding Laboratory — into a series of electives running every module of the academic year. We’ve already scheduled a trip to Thailand, hosted by Krirk University.

Additionally, following the HSE International Partner Week, we began discussing the creation of an International Design Week for representatives of our HSE Art and Design School campuses and partner universities. We plan to hold the first trial run early next academic year.”

On May 21, the International Partner Week featured a panel discussion titled “Creative Industries in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” Mitya Kharshak, Dean of the HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL in St. Petersburg, and Sergey Gridnev, Lead Curator of the Digital Product Design program, discussed AI's impact on design, education, and client relations. They were joined by international experts Felipe Taborda (Brazil), Clément Derock (France), and Yan Garin (India).

The panelists agreed that AI is already an integral part of the design profession. Therefore, the role of education is not to ignore these new tools, but to teach students how to use them mindfully. Starting next academic year, a course on applying AI tools will become mandatory across all tracks at the HSE Art and Design School. Students will learn how to formulate prompts, control generation processes, select and refine concepts, analyze contexts, and properly present their final results.

For HSE students, the International Partner Week is an opportunity to connect with peers from around the world and gain insight into how design education and professional practices work outside Russia. As part of the 2026 IPW lecture program, Brazilian designer Felipe Taborda and French designer Clément Derock gave talks to the students of the HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL.

Clément Derock, co-founder of École Intuit Lab, spoke about the role of storytelling in the Western design tradition and how narrative can imbue visual imagery with deeper meaning. Felipe Taborda explored the themes of plagiarism, imitation, and homage in design, illustrating his points with examples from creators around the globe.