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A lot of jewellery designers are no stranger to shifting between the digital and physical both for the creation of work and the communication of work. There are companies and researchers/practitioners that question and advance these practices, considering craft thinking in the context of digital experience and asking what it means to be human in an increasingly layered physical and digital world. Lynne Craig is an innnovation director, academic and founder of computational adornment. Her work, research and practice connects design, technology, education and business development; exploring the ..read more

Tiia Vahula and Philip Wilck, founders of Utopia Blu aim to embrace the boundless potential of human imagination, whilst striving for a future that is not only visually appealing but also sustainable and meaningful. Breaking disciplinary boundaries, the couple look to technology to enable creative innovations that strike the right balance between culture and nature. For this podcast episode we review how the self-proclaimed formalists have been nourishing an ability to envision sensitive possibilities, finding inspiration in nature whilst advocating for progress, by exploring emerging technolo ..read more

Sustainable practice can be seen from a range of perspectives, including the idea of Urban Mining materials, rather than using virgin materials. What we choose as materials to work from has a big impact on our practice. A researcher who has taken the practice of urban mining one step further, and has been working in the Bio-Design field for quite some time is Marie Melcore. With her work she is keen to transcend disciplinary boundaries in order to address common sustainability issues and offer out of the box design and ideas proposals that can contribute to solving the big problems we face. In ..read more

When considering alternative approaches to materials and making, you may come across Bio-design, which can be understood as a means to incorporate the inherent life-conducive principles of biological living systems into the design and making process - and this in order to move towards a more sustainable and caring future. If we want to become more empathic towards our environment, so we can co-create, collaborate with non-humans whilst constructing and most importantly improving our context, wouldn’t it be important we gain an understanding of these living systems first? What does the world fe ..read more

Hidden behind a colourful facade on a small estate in South London, you can find a treasure trove of carefully reviewed, sorted and organised ‘waste’ materials. The Work and Play Scrapstore, and its team of passionate volunteers, enable artists, makers and anyone with any use for materials, to come and be inspired. From discarded famous costumes to offcuts of wood, textiles, plastics and much, much more, the Work and Play Scrapstore is a place where anyone with an interest in materials and making could spend hours exploring. Tune in to hear more about the concept of the store, the materials an ..read more

Gold, as we know it best, is not really a material that gets distributed fairly, or even gets worked on in cooperation. But there is archaeological evidence for spectacular goldwork in stateless societies providing compelling proof that complex technologies could be sustained in the absence of coercive powers. With cooperation being a key to tackling some of our greatest global concerns, and fair distribution of materials such as gold and access to luxurious objects an ethical ambition, this should pique our interest. This month we speak to a researcher who has been tracing our fascinating rel ..read more

When thinking about materials and objects as a maker, it is important to consider the impact these materials and objects have. In a first instance that can involve considering the life cycle of materials, and constructing objects well so they are cared for and passed on rather than discarded. But what does it mean to create objects that get ‘passed on’? These objects could also be referred to as ‘kinship objects’. A thought that crossed my mind upon finding a small book that packs a punch titled ‘The Material Kinship Reader’ edited by Kris Dittel and Clementine Edwards. What role do materials ..read more

In a world full of objects, and as makers of objects, the agency of objects and materials is fascinating. Why do certain objects become valuable to us, and others not? Today sustainable making is a key consideration, and waste poses a real sustainability challenge. Are there opportunities in waste? Can we re-consider waste sensitively, incorporating it into our practices as tools, materials and actors? A maker who has been fascinated with the temporality of materials is Katy Gillam-hull. A maker of objects and jewellery who reflects upon found and archival materials and objects and their capac ..read more

When recycling silver and gold seems evident and has been around for decades, how can the practice be applied to other materials, what organisations and which individuals are already facilitating or exploring this approach, and what could we as artists, makers and designers change as part of our practices in order to become, and more importantly think like ‘Urban Miners’ re-valuing waste materials, critically reflecting on appropriation and being mindful of the longevity of our own work. In history, perhaps through necessity, re-use was common, and archaeologists have found many examples of ‘U ..read more