A person kneels on the floor to draw on a large piece of paper

Material:Making

What is making? What is the role of the maker and who does the making now? What can making be?

Image credit: Yu Sheng Ho

An art installation outside a large grand building with people carrying large colourful shaped letters

What we do

The Material:Making research group provides a space, both physical and virtual, for makers to get together; a space that is both supportive and questioning. We investigate making, developing new ways of conceiving and presenting this fundamental activity and exploring how we might contribute to a celebratory philosophy of making and the maker.

To this end, we are interested in digging into making. Listening for the various voices, both human and non-human that might emerge from engagement between bodies, tools, materials and spaces. We also investigate what role material plays in facilitating this – does it have a say and what form might this take? This enquiry cuts across both material and immaterial formats.

_{Image credit: Jim Holden}

A series of inflatable art installations at Locksbrook Campus

While we have a broad conception of what making is, we are interested in exploring some specific aspects:

Craft as a verb rather than a noun; plural as well as singular.
The role of the maker; who does the making now?
Who has the skills and where is craft found now?
Crafting through repeated processes within trades (such as plumbing, tiling, bus driving and car making).
How we acknowledge those others that make work happen, both historical and contemporary.
How we might challenge skill hierarchies and celebrate the value of skills in different contexts.
Social Knowledge Exchange with emphasis on finding the exchange and creating the social.

_{Image credit: Karen Richmond}

Vision

The group will actively contribute to the research environment in the School of Art, Film and Media through sharing research projects, generating cross-disciplinary events and working with students. We will realise the potential of collective activity within the School and recognise the value of collaboration.

We think of making as an ongoing, fluid concept, determined by the group and its social context. We think of making as a particularly intimate engagement between bodies, material and spaces.

We consider the making process as a work and presentation as a form of making. How do we bring attention to the experience of the audience when we share making research? How do we both acknowledge and let go of authorship and enable the audience/public to own the data?

The group co-organises the doing together Practice Research Symposium and has launched Static FM Campus Art Radio.