MAKING FUTURES – International Conference – September 21st/22nd – Plymouth College of Art

by | Jun 28, 2017 | Members' News

CRAFTING A SUSTAINABLE MODERNITY – TOWARDS A MAKER AESTHETICS OF PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION

Making Futures will be held on Thursday 21 and Friday 22 September 2017 within the magnificently sited Mount Edgcumbe estate on the River Tamar opposite the city of Plymouth, Devon, UK.

Making Futures seeks a diverse range of responses from artists, craftspeople, designer-makers, Fab Lab and maker-movement enthusiasts, campaigners and activists, curators, historians and theorists. Making Futures invites practice-led presentations and case studies, historical and theoretical papers, as well as innovative presentation formats that might include performance, objects and other media and materials.

Four Workshops: Crafting in Industry, The Well Maker Space, Making Leaders (Innovation & Change), and Curating Maker Cultures.

Six Indicative Themes: Craft in Modernity – Critical Perspectives on Producers and Consumers, Lifecycles of Material Worlds – Sustainability in Practice, Procedures of Making – Materials & Processes in Transformation, Translations Across (Post-Colonial) Local-Global Divides, Craft in an Expanded Field, and Making Thinking – Crafting Education.

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In addition to keynote speakers Glenn Adamson, Angela McRobbie and Ares Kalandides, the 2017 Making Futures will also welcome Sarah Mann, Director of Architecture Design Fashion, at the British Council.

Drawing upon the work of the British Council in relation to this edition’s overall theme of Crafting a Sustainable Modernity, Sarah will remind us that there are other Modernity’s being forged outside the blueprint of the ‘typical’ Western experience, in which craft and small scale artisanal production also have important roles to play. She will also explore the critical social position of women in these societies, and their particular association with many craft-based practices; and, therefore, to the roles they might play as leaders of innovation and change.

Making Futures will also feature internationally-renowned contemporary Korean ceramicist Kanghyo Lee in performance, who will produce one of his large-scale slip-decorated vessels on site.

CONFERENCE BURSARIES: A limited bursary scheme is open to independents (artists, makers and designer-makers). Please see the Making Futures website for information on applying.