Together with Tim Jordan, I will be hosting a workshop on the institutionalisation of making and the politics of DIY on Monday, 19 September. Participation is free but registration is required. Better hurry because we opted for a small group to discuss and work on new ideas. 😉 We will get together at University College London, and those participating are in for great discussions with our speakers, makers, and artists. You can find the full programme here, and registration is now open on Eventbrite.

Programme

11:00-11:30

Tea/Coffee

11:30-11:45

Welcome and Opening

11:45-13:00

Session 1: The Infrastructures of Making

To what extent has making founds its place/s in society? With an ongoing institutionalisation of makerspaces, what kind of making infrastructures have been established – and what is needed to maintain and further develop these? How has this affected grassroots maker cultures and communities? With contributions by:

• Dr Zoe Laughlin (UCL Institute of Making) — On Building and Sustaining the Institute of Making (title tbc), http://zoelaughlin.com/
• Dr Kit/Kat Braybrooke (Habitat Unit, TU Berlin) — Climate justice through co-creation? Participatory spaces for socio-ecological systems change in China, Germany and the UK, https://drkitkat.com
• Ming Wu (The Maker’s Guild Portsmouth) — How we set up The Makers Guild and its effect on local skills economies in Portsmouth

13:00-14:00

Lunch Break

14:00-15:00

Keynote by Dr Vernelle A. A. Noel, Georgia Tech — Situated Computations, Crafts, and Grounded Approaches to Design

Bio: Vernelle A. A. Noel, Ph.D. is an architect, design scholar, artist, TED Speaker, and founding Director of the Situated Computation + Design Lab at Georgia Tech. Currently, Dr Noel is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture and the School of Interactive Computing, where she teaches courses in design, computation, and architecture. https://vaanoel.com/

The keynote will be delivered remotely.

15:15-16:15

Session 2: The Ethics and Politics of Making

What are the politics of making, and are the artefacts of making inevitably political? What ethics matter to makers, especially in terms of sustainability and re-use? With contributions by:

• Professor Adrian Smith, SPRU/University of Sussex: Looking for alternatives to the Fourth Industrial Revolution by exploring industrious (maker)spaces for post-automation, https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p16347-adrian-smith
• Alessandra Fasoli, Kingston School of Art London: Craft in Makerspaces: The Potential for Social Change for Sustainability, https://www.kingston.ac.uk/research/research-degrees/research-degree-students/profile/alessandra-fasoli-511
• Irene Fubara-Manuel, Dr Cécile Chevalier, Dr Sharon Webb, School of Media, Arts and Humanities, University of Sussex: Full Stack Feminism, http://ifte.network/full-stack-feminism/

16:15-17:00

Concluding Plenary Discussion