Natalie Opris

What happens when the designer and the curator merge into one?
This provocative question was at the heart of Beyond the Game, a workshop led by Nathalie Opris, curator and designer at Konstantin Grcic Design.

Using sports as a lens, students were invited to explore the space where exhibition design meets curatorial practice. Sport was not just seen as athletic performance, but as a field where questions of identity, innovation, accessibility, and inclusion collide. How can design shape the future of sport? And how can sport, in turn, reshape the way we tell stories?

Over several days, participants navigated the full process of curating and designing an exhibition: formulating concepts, experimenting with how objects, media, and space interact, and testing ways of transforming abstract ideas into tangible experiences. A visit to the stadium of Syracuse became both inspiration and fieldwork—observing sport live, as architecture, as ritual, and as social space.

The workshop was further fueled by three outstanding guest lectures:

Gemma Redgrave, Global Head of Marketing at AKQA (London), revealed the behind-the-scenes of global campaigns and events.
Anna Titovets (Intektra), artist, curator, and creative director, unfolded strategies for embedding digital technologies into museum storytelling.
Konstantin Grcic, one of today’s most influential designers, shared his reflections on balancing design and curatorship, and how sport and technology have intersected in his work.

The culmination was a collective exhibition and presentation: students shared their research journeys, weaving together diverse perspectives on sport and designing the layout of a potential exhibition. Their proposals were not just displays, but visions of sport as culture, politics, and shared experience.

This workshop was made possible thanks to the support of the Digital Education Hubs (DEH) project, funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.