Thematic Sessions
Each edition of the Making Futures journal brings together a spectrum of peer-reviewed and selected speaker responses to the IV edition ‘Making Futures: Return of the Maker…’ headline theme. These contributions are organised through the three Research Workshops, the Digital Crafting Panel, and six Thematic Sessions to which they correspond as downloadable PDF papers with authors appearing in alphabetical order.
1. Craft as social process
A particular feature to emerge from the first conference was the fundamental importance of the social relationships that seem inherent in many crafts related activities; that if the crafts are to enact more ethically and environmentally sustainable practices, it will likely include re-orientating and developing the social relationships that surround them.
Burcikova, Mila
Craftivism 2000: Utopia of Socially Engaged Craft?
Daker, Emma
Shelanu ‘belonging to us’ Refugee and migrant women working with Craftspace to develop a craft social enterprise.
Fuad-Luke, Alastair
Re-crafting capitalism, regenerating societies: How do designer-makers amplify, build and regenerate social capital?
Hur, Eunsuk
The role of craft in a co-design system for sustainable fashion Abstract
Twigger-Holroyd, Amy
Fashion Diggers: transgressive making for personal benefit
Yair, Karen
Craft and the Creative Lifecycle: Making in changing times
2. Craft in an expanded field
If the specialist fields of the Studio Crafts and associated arts and crafts practitioners and writers - what we might refer to as the category of craft with a capital “C” - is (as suggested by several commentators at the first Making Futures conference) an historically contingent one, an epiphenomenon of Modern industrial production, then it seems that a broader view of craft with a small “c” (beyond the realm of the Studio Crafts) might represent an important future dimension of our understanding of the crafts in a sustainably aware post-industrial late Modernity.
Harper, Alison
Responses, redefinitions and repositionings: Creativity as a new direction in eco-philosophy
Kane, Faith
The significance of craft in the development of sustainable materials design: localisation, technology and emotional durability
Paolantonio, Dan
Imperfect Cinema: Making Futures? Making Futures: The act of ‘future-making.’ Making Futures: The future of ‘making.’
Woolley, Martin
‘Crafting the Mainstream - sustaining research and practice through wider production engagement’
3. Critical perspectives on post-industrial futures
What are the historically informed critical-cultural perspectives that help define the position of the contemporary crafts in relation to the political economies of industrialisation and to a post-industrial future in which environmental sustainability becomes a key (if not singularly the key) paradigm?
Ferraro, Emilia
The Ecology of Life. Reflections on Craft, Biodiversity and Knowledge for Sustainable Development
Jennings, Hilary
What role for craft in the creation of a collaborative and positive future vision?
Loveday-Edwards, Mary
Craft As A Socially Aware Nostalgic Practice: Re-Envisioning A Positive Futures
Malcolm, Martin
Take a look at these hands...
Na, Yuri
Repositioning Contemporary Crafts by Crafts-Consumers’ Values: Roles of Crafts and Craftspeople for Sustainable Crafts
4. Local-global translations and dialogues
What are the tensions and flows expressed in craft making and craft consumption in the supposedly ‘post-colonial’ contexts of contemporary global capitalism and its possible futures?
Bunn, Stephanie
Felt as a change-maker in contemporary Kyrgyzstan
Chotiratanapinun, Treechada
Bamboo for Life: An Exploration of Bamboo Craft Practices in Thailand
Luutonen, Marketta
Hand Made Future – the Good Life as Artisans’ Goal
Peach, Andrea
Contemporary Craft and the Commodification of National Identity in 1970s Scotland– What can be learned from Cultural Policy?
Rhodes, Sarah
Beyond ‘Nourishing the Soul of a Nation’: Craft in the Context of South Africa
Stevens, Ingrid
Crafts That Last: Sustainable Craft Projects in South Africa
Thomas, Angharad
Small scale textile production in Wales: Exploring issues of sustainability
5. Socio-technological and material discourses
What are the relationships of craft practices to ‘post-industrial’ modes of design, making, marketing and consumption?
6. Responses, redefinitions & repositionings
In what practical ways are craft practitioners responding to public dialogues around sustainability issues - for example, through the ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’ rubric?
Carden, Susan
Craft Informed Digital Textile Printing
Leake, Lucy
Making Pasts? Investigating the sustainability of family stories in a digital age
Nasseri, Mona
Craft, Responsibility and the Search for Sustainability
Steed, Josephine
Unravel: Revaluing the Craft of Knitting For New Emergent Design Contexts Within a Post-Industrial World
Wood, Richard
Making, social identity, and sustainable society
7. Endangered subjects - ethical minds
How do we perform social equity and environmental sustainability in the context of crafts education and curriculum design?
Houghton, Nicholas
Craft Education: What it is, Where it Comes From, Where it’s Going
McLaren, Graham
Ethics, Education and the ‘Kitchen Table’ Potter
Smith, Chris
Encountering Resistance: Creative Responses to Sustainability Agendas
Barber, Claire & Swindells, Steve
More than Charity – Textiles in Daily Life