Personal exploration: Serendipity and intentionality as altering positions in a creative process

Mäkelä, Maarit

doi:10.7577/formakademisk.1461

Cited by 21 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Being local and universal at the same time enables craft-practitioners to start discussions based on personal experiences that are globally relevant (ibid.). Also, importantly, craft-making connects materials with body and mind through a dialogical relationship (Brink & Reddy, 2019;Sennett, 2013;Mäkelä, 2016). As anthropologist Tim Ingold (2010, p. 97) argues, while practitioners engage with materials, they follow the material properties to let the final artefact emerge.…”

Section: Design Researchers Elvinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Studying Material Interactions to Facilitate a Sense of Being with the World

Aktaş¹,

Groth²

2020

Proceedings of DRS

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Material interactions are fundamental to design and craft education; however, they might also provide opportunities to reflect on sustainable behaviour in general. In this paper, we present an interdisciplinary undergraduate course in which students interacted with clay and wool. By engaging novices in material-based craft processes, we examined renewed ways of experiencing the materials to reconsider our everyday material interactions and our dependency and responsibilities in regard to materials in general. Through this example, we discuss the potential of craft practice as an educational platform to discuss materiality and to facilitate a deeper and more holistic understanding of the consequences of our material behaviour beyond the creative practices. The students' reflections over the five weeks touched upon their renewed appreciation of materials, and their changed interactions with materialsmoving towards a dialogical stance rather than only using them as a means to an end.

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Section: Design Researchers Elvinmentioning

confidence: 99%

Studying Material Interactions to Facilitate a Sense of Being with the World

Aktaş¹,

Groth²

2020

Proceedings of DRS

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“…Craft practice is a way of thinking while manipulating material (Nimkulrat, 2012). In this process, the maker builds a dialogue with his/her hand, mind, material, and material surrounding (Aktaş & Mäkelä, 2019;Mäkelä, 2016;Sennett 2013). This dialogue is extended to the situations, as social scientist Donald Schön (1988, p.183) argues, since creative practices either transform the situations or are transformed by the situations.…”

Section: Materials Engagement Theory (Met) As An Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Material Connections in Craft Making: The case of felting

Aktaş¹,

Mäkelä²,

Laamanen³

2020

Proceedings of DRS

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This study examined a creative practice, namely felting, to explore the daily practices and encounters of felt makers. The study aimed at understanding the material connections of felt-making that are not limited to the making process. To examine how practices of felt makers emerge in connection to materials, we employed the material engagement theory as our perspective. The data was collected through interviews with eight felt makers and participant observation at two studios in Turkey. The analysis revealed how felt makers think between things, people, space and time and develop their practices accordingly. These findings illuminated a holistic and insightful understanding of the material's role in shaping the practice and field. A more holistic and insightful approach can also propose being open to constantly renewing creative practices and recognising how its material connections affect other things and people.

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“…Therefore, in practice-led research, although the research starts with a defined purpose, it is also open to reinterpretations (Sullivan 2009: 48-49). Decisions can be a combination of intuitions emerging from the agency of the external factors and intentionality of the maker (Mäkelä, 2016). To understand how these decisions are made, the practitioner-researcher examines her reflective documentation.…”

Section: Using Self-experiences To Study Feltingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, a field trip to the Turkish countryside was organised to observe wool in its own natural environment (Figure 9). At this stage, agentic power of the environment became observable (Mäkelä, 2016). The studies in the natural environment began with observations on sheep, the producer of wool.…”

Section: Observing Wool and Transformations In Feltingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using wool’s agency to design and make felted artefacts

Aktaş¹

2019

RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research

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This exposition presents an explorative project that examines employing material as a reference point for designing and making an artefact. The material's effects on designing and making have been elaborated upon from many angles. This exposition also examines how material affects designing and making processes from the perspective of material agency. This study argues that by observing a material's behaviour from the perspective of agency, one can genuinely understand what the material does, and accordingly can find ways to collaborate with it in the process of designing and making artefacts. The discussion is articulated through a designer's project in felting by employing a practiceled research approach that examined the decision-making processes through written reflections and visual documentation. This examination suggests that by including material as a reference point, design and making can reflect the ecology of the material in a way that combines human power with the activeness of the material.

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Personal exploration: Serendipity and intentionality as altering positions in a creative process

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 21 publications

References 15 publications

Studying Material Interactions to Facilitate a Sense of Being with the World

Studying Material Interactions to Facilitate a Sense of Being with the World

Material Connections in Craft Making: The case of felting

Using wool’s agency to design and make felted artefacts

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