European Academy of Design – Extreme Making | The Glasgow School of Art Exhibitions Department

EXTREME MAKING: EXPANSIVE METHODS AND CRITICAL THEMES IN DESIGN DOCTORAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Sat 14^th – Fri 20^th October 2023

The European Academy of Design (EAD) is a platform for design academics and practitioners to scale, amplify and empower the creation of design knowledge research. The ‘Extreme Making’ conference hub and exhibition explores the present and future possibilities of research and education in design through creative practice research, located in making and materials, critical theory and history. ‘Extreme Making’ suggests the breadth of practices in design, from established craft skills and techniques to smart technologies and materials, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and systems design.

View Exhibition Documentation Here

1. Bread n’ Butter
Katy West (The Glasgow School of Art)
Keywords: Slow-craft, industrial ceramics, bread-making, batch-production, collaboration
Bread ‘n Butter is a slip cast functioning butterdish. Made in Stoke-on-Trent, it evokes traditional creamware, clear glaze on slip-cast earthenware clay, and stamped with cobalt blue. Produced in collaboration with local bakers, the model was cast from the first type of loaf that they made and sold. The collaborative project brings together notions of slow craft with artisanal baking through its traditional manufacturing processes. The shared processes of baking and ceramics are highlighted in the end-form through their artisanal approach, which contrasts with large-scale production, an affordable and accessible product made with careful production values. The artefact is accompanied by a Zine that expands on themes in the making of the butterdish. It considers baking, making, butter and bread, historic and current narratives relating the making of bread and butter to health, ecology and politics.

2. Hybrid Craft Practice: Expanding the Boundaries of Enamel Plique-à-jour
Yinglong Li (Birmingham City University)
Keywords: Design thinking, craft practice, digital technology, enamelling
This interdisciplinary research expands the boundary of traditional enamelling technique plique-à-jour through creative craft practice. I have made a breakthrough of the cellular structure, radically changing the interpretation of material for traditional plique-à-jour, viewing enamel as a bonding agent, utilising a dismountable structure design approach and integrating digital technology. Plique-à-jour is a traditional enamelling technique similar to miniature stained-glass windows that use transparent enamel to fill in the cellular metal framework with fragile property. As a kind of traditional craft, plique-à-jour has barely change in centuries. This practice-based design research addresses the issues of debate relating to how to develop this old enamelling technique creatively. In this study, Based on the empirical data collected from studio practices, a new and innovative enamelling technique is proposed.

3. Clarification through Clay: Questioning the role of data-design in clay-based work
Dena Bagi (Manchester School of Art and University of Sunderland)
Keywords: Clay methodology, perception, phenomenology, pedagogy
The Clarification though Clay project explored the nuanced relationships between data design, the meaning-making assets of clay, and arts-based research methods adopted as standard in the field. The relational maps exhibited were produced by Dena Bagi. Gabriella Rhodes and graphic designers, Minute Works. The trio utilised the cyclical nature of clay making as a meaning-making process, the Grounded Theory methodology and ‘hard’ coding processes, based on the principles of Situational Mapping – to produce the initial outcome.

4. ‘Kidult’ Toy Collecting Culture within creative glass practice as an expression of self-ethnography
Suh MoonJu (University of Edinburgh)
Research Poster Keywords: Kidult toys, collecting, glass, self-ethnography
This project connects to the Extreme Making conference themes in that this is a practice-based PhD project, that is focused on materiality and making. The research accesses new craft methods that have emerged in my work using a range of post-digital (analogue) craft techniques to make my work. This doctoral research project is an expression of self-ethnography which is focused on the social and cultural aspects of Kidult toy collecting as a form of adult play. Moreover, my studio-based research reveals my hidden emotions that are masked due to social pressure and microaggression from interactions in my daily life and workplace in the UK; as a female Asian minority artist. This research experiment was followed through a multiple-methods: sketchbooks, technical notes, reflection in and on action through a reflective journal within critical observation and commentary and a diary that recorded everyday interactions, photography, and colour experimentation.

5. Cross-Disciplinary Jewellery: Cross-disciplinary Knowledge to Expand the Field of Contemporary Jewellery
Dong Ding (Edinburgh College of Art)
Research Poster Keywords: Cross-disciplinary jewellery, making, research, distributed collaboration
This practice-based research is an investigation into cross-disciplinary jewellery. The goal of this PhD research will be to establish a new disciplinary framework for the study of cross-disciplinary jewellery. To date there is disparate information on the use of cross-disciplinary research within the field of jewellery. This research will fill the gap, defining and extending the use of cross-disciplinary within the field of jewellery. This is a two-part research structure in which are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. The first part is based on a literature review and a number of existing cross-disciplinary jewellery artists and works to get a preliminary definition of cross-disciplinary jewellery. The second part is a further and deeper research into cross-disciplinary jewellery to provide a more complete definition for it by spotting more features through collaboration projects.

Music performed by Ida Tili-Trebicka
Associate Teaching Professor, Keyboard Area Coordinator
Applied Music and Performance (Piano)
Setnor School of Music
College of Visual and Performance Art
Syracuse University, USA

6. The Sustainability of Rural-Based Craft Practice
Peining Sheng (University of Edinburgh)
Research Poster Keywords: China, Scotland, rural-based crafts, sustainable development
This research explores the value of rural-based craft practice in the sustainable development with strategic design thinking. A comparative study conducted between Scotland and China aims to a) promote the implementation of United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8, 11, and 13; b) reform stereotypes surrounding ‘Made in China’ label; c) design a strategy for rural craft development and sustainability. The multi-sited rapid ethnography and case study methodology have been employed to research crafts sustainability in Fife and Chongming. In this case, semi-structured interview and participant observation methods have been utilized to acknowledge the sustainability challenges of craftspeople living in rural areas. The long-term goal is to focus on insights into the future sustainable development of craft practice, which will stimulate the creative economy and reinforce cultural identity in the local area. In addition, this qualitative comparative study enables an understanding of sustainable development holistically.

7. Contemporary Jewellery: Improving Well-being and Quality of Life
Yajie Hu (Loughborough University)
Research Poster Keywords: Contemporary jewellery, well-being, art jewellery, sustainable practice
Increasingly rapid economic and social change is placing ever higher pressure and intensity on our lives, leading to many people suffering from anxiety, stress and mental illnesses. Especially during Covid-19, the outbreak and lockdown dramatically altered people’s lives. Jewellery as an intimate object has decorated our bodies for millennia and has developed a variety of different meanings and functions. Research has been conducted investigating how jewellery practices might improve well-being. There are many studies on designing wearable technology that contributes to improving the well-being of the wearer. However, there is insufficient literature exploring how contemporary jewellery can enhance an individual’s well-being in terms of making and wearing jewellery, which is the overarching aim and question for my research. This PhD research project is practice-based. Methods such as interviews, co-creation workshops, and diary studies will be employed. Contemporary jewellery practice is also an important part of the methods in this research.

This work is an exploration of new possibilities using sustainable materials as artistic language in contemporary jewellery. The body of work is made of paper and cork as these materials are sustainable, low-cost, readily available, and safe to handle. My research involves material experiments in recycling paper from pulped waste. Cork is natural, renewable material that is well known for its versatility. I am exploring how the industrial mechanical method of making objects from cork granules can be applied in my work and utilised in jewellery. The overarching aim and question for my research is exploring how contemporary jewellery can enhance an individual’s well-being in terms of making and wearing jewellery. This PhD research project is practice-based. Methods such as interviews, co-creation workshops, and diary studies are employed.

8. Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia Japonica): Realising Non-Human Living Agency in the Anthropocene
Catherine Van Olden (The Glasgow School of Art)
Keywords: Participatory design, agency, commodification, printmaking, Japanese Knotweed
In 1897, Japanese Knotweed was planted with imperial botanical ambitions at Queen’s Park, Glasgow. By the mid-1950s, it had prospered despite being labelled a ‘garden misfit’. This practice-based study was founded on the link between GSA, Glasgow Botanic Gardens, and the history of botany, imperialism, science, and nature. The study emphasises natural histories explaining imperial and scientific objectives, the parallels between natural knowledge development, and the production and exchange of commodities in capitalist economies. Answering the research question, Can we change the image of Japanese Knotweed by printing together? This research shows how Anthropocene non-human agency resists commercialisation and exploitation. This project shows how participatory design and research might change perceptions of Japanese Knotweed by creating a portfolio of prints and a series of small-scale online zine-making workshops to generate a critical and creative discourse about speculative futures connected to the non-human agency.

9. Material Sweetie Shop
Lucy Robertson (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh)
Keywords: Materials, making, design, waste, resource
Understanding material qualities and properties is imperative for designers. These Images showcase a material sweetie shop built from waste material and examples of the materials in use. The shop is intended as a learning resource for designers to help consider what existing materials can be utilised in design projects. It is estimated that roughly 80% of the environmental impact a product will have in its life cycle is decided during the design stage. While the aim is to eliminate waste all together by creating a circular process, with creations either being re-used or return to the earth as food (Barber, 2019) as Katie Treggiden highlights, ‘the resources we need are no longer in the ground, but in landfill’ (2020). This research looks to explore the possibilities of the materials and further understand how waste can change from a ‘fact’ into a ‘category’ and resource (ibid).

10. Craft + Future = ? – Speculating Interior Practices in India
Rishav Jain, Teja Siva Srinivas (CEPT University, India; Department of Design, IIT Delhi)
Keywords: Interior architecture, parallel futures, pluralism, design education
With the ongoing debate on the dichotomies of past-future, old-new, and traditional-contemporary, the craft industry is under continual pressure to reinvent and reposition itself. How does one position craft in interior architecture today? What is the role of the designer/craftsperson? Can craft create new future possibilities? Many such issues or assumptions prompted speculation regarding Indian craft’s future. CEPT University’s Craft + Future = ? Studio explores such themes at the interface of craft and interior architecture. Students explore the current state of craft, propose a future vision, develop an individual design manifesto, and make design proposals and craft prototypes. Students challenge preconceived notions by outlining their envisioned crafts perspective via their design manifesto and demonstrating design outcomes. This exhibition submission presents the findings of the studio from 2019-2022 in two introduction posters, a portfolio link, and student work as images.

11. Monument of Nomadism (brooches)
Zihan Zhou (Loughborough University)
Keywords: Inner Mongolia rock art, contemporary jewellery, narrative jewellery
This work is part of my PhD research: Contemporary Jewellery Design and Traditional Animal Iconography in Inner Mongolian Art. I study the traditional jewellery and ornaments of the nomadic people of Inner Mongolia, employing my knowledge to inspire my jewellery practice. With a lifestyle involved moving with tents, belongings and livestock, the nomadic people in Inner Mongolia developed their own value-system and culture. To accommodate living on the move, they keep only their most important items with them. Jewellery, accordingly, occupies a very special place in their society, not just as ornaments, but also as a wearable symbol of wealth, status and culture. My brooches are inspired by Neolithic and Bronze Age animal carvings in Yinshan Rock Art. I use recycled materials and traditional techniques to revivify the animal forms and by making them into wearable pieces, I aim imaginatively to recreate Inner Mongolian nomadic jewellery of the distant past.

12. Faded Formation I & II
Charlott Rodgers (Edinburgh College of Art)
Keywords: Foam-glass, subversive making, volatile, dissidence
The basis of my research work lies in subverting traditional glass and ceramic making practices by way of adding discordant, foreign materials to the glass and ceramic bodies. As another layer of enquiry and subversion, traditional tools and set making conventions are broken to reveal unexpected results and aesthetics. The pieces submitted for this exhibition are highly experimental in nature. A foaming agent was added to the glass to achieve extreme foaming while a colour fade was accomplished by adding pure cobalt oxide to the glass in varying percentages. By pushing the material in extreme ways unexpected but transformative results are possible.

13. Arabic Glass
Keeryong Choi (University of Edinburgh)
Keywords: In-betweenness, sense of belonging, bicultural identity
Central to my artistic practice, the notion of unhomeliness has been explored by creating a glass object that possesses ’strangeness’ and could not find a sense of belonging within the existing (Korean or British) visual culture.

My artwork’s inherent distinctive qualities rely on the sense of bicultural identity presented within the pieces. This bicultural identity derived from the fact that the artworks do not readily fit into either Korean or British visual culture, as they are deliberately designed to create a pseudo-Korean-British or British-Korean image that can be viewed as a Western or Eastern image, or a blending of both cultures. By creating an invented image which can be viewed as familiar or unfamiliar at the same time, I wanted to challenge the individual’s projected expectation of another culture (or cultural stereotypes) and their understanding of (cultural) authenticity.

14. Lockdown Glass
Jessamy Rachel Kelly (Edinburgh College of Art)
Keywords: Waste glass, recycling, sustainability, materiality, environment
Glass is made from natural and abundant raw materials, if properly cleaned and sorted glass can be infinitely recycled. Unfortunately, recycling glass is complex, contamination is a problem, and the majority of waste glass becomes aggregate within road surfaces. When processed in the right way waste glass can offer a viable alternative, offering a sustainable model that actively reduces our impact on the environment. Exploring new and sustainable models of working with waste glass is an important and vital practice-based research approach. This new body of work is made from waste glass and actively explores where glass comes from, how it can be recycled and the transformation it can make into new art forms. It offers a commentary on the impact that craft materials and processes can have on our environment.

15. Squall Line
Gregory Alliss (University of Edinburgh)
Keywords: Waste glass, sustainable studio practice, circular economy, closed loop recycling.
The work is looking at aspects of sustainability in the context of glass art studio practice, investigating the production of art made from non-traditional materials and from waste glass that is not traditionally used by glass artists. The work is made using the kiln casting technique. Unusually it is made from recycled CRT glass from old style televisions combined with conventional clear casting glass in the kiln during the casting cycle. I am interested in pushing the material boundaries of the CRT glass. Resulting objects makes the CRT glass do something thing it was never designed to do. The skill in making is to create patterns and reactions in a glass object that embrace the contaminated material properties of the source material. The ‘extreme making’ aspect of the work is the development of new sustainable materials possibilities and craft skills for glass studio practice.

16. Contemporary Reimagining of a Paisley Shawl
Mhari McMullan (The Glasgow School of Art)
Keywords: Textiles, archives, print, Paisley, translation
A series of new designs and images have been created in response to Paisley Museum’s historic textile collection. This piece of work showcases the triggers and traces of archival research, referencing the original, heritage material but through a process of translation and removal, creating new textiles from textiles. To limit the amount of space and waste in the production process, these are presented as digitally projected patterns onto a 90cm square, white, silk scarf – a modern interpretation of the Paisley Shawls that inspired them. The digital projections show different textile techniques and methods including block printing, sublimation printing and patchwork. They also reflect the archival research process itself through their material and visual expression.

17. My Body in my Hands
Samantha Jane Lucas (University of Sunderland)
Keywords: Neurodiversity, body, creativity, clay, well-being
The pandemic highlighted how vital social media platforms can be for engaging people in a shared experience. I chose a democratic and non-hierarchical platform, in the form of Instagram. A novel research method, that is both visual and democratic, where participants are offered the opportunity to contribute to this ongoing research project in its different manifestations. A call out was made encouraging those signed up to this platform to express how they felt in their body, to create a response, to photograph it in their hand and hashtag #mybodyinmyhands and optional #exploringtheneurodiversebody. This project was then chosen by an artist/curator, who would produce a physical exhibition of the responses. My aim in using this novel method was to throw the net out wide, which resulted in a selection of neurodiverse participants agreeing to be interviewed as part of my multi methods qualitative research into neurodiversity, body awareness and creativity.

18. [Ö] Fieldwork – Somewhere Over Nowhere
Paddi Alice Benson (University of Edinburgh)
Keywords: Island topoi, catastrophe, fieldwork, drawing, test site
[Ö] Fieldwork is a series of material recordings of sites and events located near to, or on the catastrophic coast of, somewhere over nowhere – from Hellya and Storm Abigail, to Prospero’s Island and St Elmo’s fire, to Utopus’s severed Isthmus and geo-obfuscation, to Bikini Atoll and Kodak-Wilson clouds. The installation consists of storm-wrecked sails, a light table with medium format transparencies, dual 35mm slide projections, and framed fabric maps. Each of these components – and their paired camera feed – provide a different way of viewing the fieldwork and are positioned within the room as a ‘live, field drawing’. The project sits within a sequence of research works that engage with the cultural and material histories of specific island topoi – to explore ‘what makes the condition for an island’ and its potentiality as ‘test site’.

19. Arthur’s Seat
Ziyan Wang (University of Edinburgh)
Keywords: craft, well-being, landscape, interaction
This work reflects my impression of Edinburgh’s Arthur’s Seat. It is a combination of a hand-made product and natural objects, challenging the seemingly impregnable border between the artificial and the natural. The blue colour of the sea, lakes, and sky makes the core element of the glass base. The removable part of stones collected from hills and lakes is my effort to connect with the place where I’ll be living for a long time and fight negative emotions emerging during stressful study and living in new cultures. The core of this work originates from a Chinese concept, Penjing, miniature Chinese gardens created as an impression of landscape and a reflection of one’s heart. I deliberately shorten the distance between the artwork and its audience, by leaving a removable part and a space for plants, to see what an intimate and continuous interaction with crafts work can do to our mood.

20. Memory Laundrette: Element 1, ‘Pulley’
Patrick Macklin, Thomai Pnevmonidou (The Glasgow School of Art)
Keywords: Domesticity, material culture, reimagining, materiality
A reimagining of once commonplace objects found in domestic urban settings of the city of Glasgow, ordinary household effects, hidden in plain sight, above eye level, indoors. It highlights the high contrast between the object when active – shrouded in fabric – and when inactive – exposed as mere unadorned mechanical device. Our attempt to reconstruct the pulley incorporates considerations of laundering processesand the spectacular nature of the hoisting of the washing load. The process of laundering is a convergence of diverse components – textiles, machinery, sound, scent, and motion, all within particular scenographic configurations, yet while Victorian innovation sought ways to employ technical devices that would facilitate everyday living, we are unburdened by such concerns. Instead, our method of counterfeiting prefers to exploit the rapid capacity of contemporary methods of fabrication, both analogue and digital, to create light-touch prototypes in materials with no subsequent practical duties to perform.

21. Not Knowing with Plants as Animation Practical Strategy
Yun Lu (Edinburgh College of Art)
Keywords: Animation, craft, plants, not knowing, animated jams
Holland Park is a practice-based research project that explores not knowing as animation collective labour division between both human and plants. It challenges the traditional vertical labour division in mainstream animation and includes an animation workshop in which six animators create non-representational animation of plants in a park. The project also includes a theoretical reflection paper on the practice. Not knowing with plants as an animation practical strategy offers a new perspective on ‘crystal images’, presenting as a disordered, spherical timing that differs from both ‘moving images’ and ‘frames in sequence’. The project also seeks to establish a shared authorship between both plant and human animators as plants ethics. During the workshop, each animator selected a plant and created 8-12 frames without direct visual representation. The plant and frames were then passed on to the next animator without explanation, creating a collaborative and spontaneous process. The video provided is a sample of the current composed animation. The work is in the form of animation or a time-based installation, such as a zoetrope.

22. Bio-based Materials from Po River Organic Waste: A Do-It-Yourself Design
Martina Grassi, Elena Comino, Laura Dominici (Politecnico di Torino, Italy)
Keywords: Aquatic vegetation, bio-based elastomer, freshwater ecosystem, circular economy
Freshwater ecosystems are increasingly affected by the raise of temperatures in urban areas that causes the proliferation of invasive aquatic vegetation, such as the case of Elodea nuttalii in the Po River in Turin (Italy). Mechanical eradication is the most efficient method of environmental control, but it produces large amounts of plant biomass treated as organic waste. This study focuses on investigating opportunities to use aquatic plant biomass as raw material to produce bio-based materials to replace fossil-based plastics. A preliminary analysis led to develop almost 31 procedures and the study was performed in laboratory by Do-It-Yourself approach as method to explore potentialities offered by aquatic plant biomass. ‘Material Tinkering’ was then adopted as method to preliminary evaluate samples of bio-based materials. Some samples showed promising characteristics and properties that suggest interesting real-scale applications in the perspective of circular economy such as in the footwear industry.

23. The Black Box Dissertation
Lisa L Naas (Independent Researcher)
Keywords: Creative, non-traditional, doctoral thesis, glass
This work is a digital version of my creative, non-traditional doctoral thesis, The Black Box Dissertation, an extreme, experimental form of dissertation-making from my artistic practice. My work reflects my subject of glass creativity and ideation. Concepts of glass permeate the text, which uses academic and lyric writing with images. The thesis even incorporates glass material in Spectacles, its optical navigation tool. The work challenges traditions and expectations of the doctoral thesis. For the EAD23 Exhibition, I exhibit a narrated film (8:05min) showing viewer interaction and/or my interactive version online. During my Viva, I successfully defended my thesis as post-studio glass and was awarded my PhD. I created my dissertation by turning the doctoral ‘writing-up’ process into an artistic process, producing a thesis that is an artwork. After creating a physical artist book-thesis, I pivoted to a digital format due to pandemic restrictions around submission and examination.

24. Re-Imagining the Social Lives of Materials through Play: Balsa Wood
Laura-Jane Atkinson (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Keywords: Balsa, play, material narratives
This project puts Balsa Wood at the centre of a practice-based investigation into the potential of play as a vehicle to unlearn and rewrite the social lives of materials considered by some as ‘naff’. Balsa wood is a material that carries many properties that we might consider desirable in the quest for more sustainable, readily renewable materials, but it is often only used for prototypes or temporary propositions. Usually found in the ‘hobby’ section of craft shops and rarely used in the professional design field, only occasionally making its way into our daily lives. This project proposes play as a practice-based research method that could be key in re-inventing a materials’ social narrative, subsequently leading to new and longer-term relationships. Can play extend the social lifespan of materials by proposing new ideas for how we can expect to ‘socialise’ with materials whose potential has been limited through social categorisation?

25. Frozen in Time
Kunning Ding (University of Dundee)
Keywords: Electroforming, jewellery design, emotional expression, daily objects
My project is concerned with creating emotionally durable jewellery with metal recovered from electronic waste by a hydrometallurgy process. This series of electroformed objects for this exhibition were selected from my life: the first time when I went to London; a bouquet of flowers from my friend. All of the moments have passed by but through electroforming I have been able to freeze these memories in time. Part of this research is transforming the emotional attachment from old electronic devices to new jewellery, through the electroforming technique. The project started by researching the emotional attachment towards electronic devices used in daily life, such as mobile phones, these have a strong connection to the everyday as well as storing treasured memories through photographs etc.

26. Waste Glass Landscape
Jessamy Rachel Kelly (Edinburgh College of Art)
Keywords: Waste glass, recycling, sustainability, materiality, environment
Glass is made from natural and abundant raw materials, if properly cleaned and sorted glass can be infinitely recycled. Unfortunately, recycling glass is complex, contamination is a problem, and the majority of waste glass becomes aggregate within road surfaces. When processed in the right way waste glass can offer a viable alternative, offering a sustainable model that actively reduces our impact on the environment. Exploring new and sustainable models of working with waste glass is an important and vital practice-based research approach. This new body of work is made from waste glass and actively explores where glass comes from, how it can be recycled and the transformation it can make into new art forms. It offers a commentary on the impact that craft materials and processes can have on our environment.

27. Extreme Making through Hand-Building Clay Sculpting, Nature Observation, and Filming
Sanmin Tan (University of Edinburgh)
Keywords: Hand-building clay sculpting, nature observation, filmmaking
This research topic is an investigation into clay sculpting which is used as a non-therapeutic intervention to build and improve mental health and well-being. The ontological position of the proposed research is rooted in sensation, nature, and spirit within movement, time, and space. The hand-building clay sculpting is informed by the observation of nature and has been developed as a designed practice for participants who want to understand the connections between their inner worlds and the external world including their local environment and the sense of space and place: “In so far as we make use of our healthy senses, the human being is the most powerful and exact scientific instrument possible” to investigate the unity of nature and human beings (Goethe).

28. Research through Crafts and Design under Heuristic Methodology
Qiwei Liu (University of Edinburgh)
Keywords: Heuristic, modernity, individual, craft, cross-cultural
This practice research investigates differences between art jewellery and related works in the West and China, exploring modernist notions of the individual. The researcher recalls his experience in both the UK and China, where different methods were observed: seeking balance and peace through crafts; and an experimental process wherein bones transform to a new material by crafts. The heuristic methodology is supported by praxis and experiential knowledge, in which the creation of contemporary jewellery is reflexively informed by its culture. Heuristic research is an exploration of the meaning and essence of human experiences through self-experience, honouring the intersection of the personal, mutual, and social contexts (Sultan, 2019). The importance of it lies in embodying a phenomenological emphasis on meaning and understanding through self-experience. This research will contribute a cross-cultural dimension to the perennial discourse on the boundaries of art-craft-design.

29. Activating a ‘Watery’ Bloom Space: Participatory Textiles, Folklore, and Ecology
Jacqueline Heather Morris (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Keywords: Participatory textiles, ecology, folklore, rivers
This is a pilot project testing a methodology which combines participatory textiles and heritage practice, focused on the watery place of a threatened river. ‘The Lugg Embroideries’ forms a case study addressing the question ‘How can stitching both conceptually and materially re-make, re-store, repair or reimagine our relationships with nature through a focus on folkloric heritage?’ The research was undertaken in the format of a twelve-week programme offering three group meetings a week, with input from outside speakers. The project resulted in 171 snowdrops being embroidered by forty-one participants. Three exhibitions and a public event were held. This paper describes the process of activating a bloom space of care and concern for the river through stitching together and discusses some personal reflections alongside images of the emerging artefacts.

30. Contemporary Jewellery: Improving Well-being and Quality of Life
Yajie Hu (Loughborough University)
Keywords: Contemporary jewellery, well-being, art jewellery, sustainable practice
Increasingly rapid economic and social change is placing ever higher pressure and intensity on our lives, leading to many people suffering from anxiety, stress and mental illnesses. Especially during Covid-19, the outbreak and lockdown dramatically altered people’s lives. Jewellery as an intimate object has decorated our bodies for millennia and has developed a variety of different meanings and functions. Research has been conducted investigating how jewellery practices might improve well-being. There are many studies on designing wearable technology that contributes to improving the well-being of the wearer. However, there is insufficient literature exploring how contemporary jewellery can enhance an individual’s well-being in terms of making and wearing jewellery, which is the overarching aim and question for my research. This PhD research project is practice-based. Methods such as interviews, co-creation workshops, and diary studies will be employed. Contemporary jewellery practice is also an important part of the methods in this research.

31. Cross-Disciplinary Jewellery: Cross-disciplinary Knowledge to Expand the Field of Contemporary Jewellery
Dong Ding (Edinburgh College of Art)
Keywords: Cross-disciplinary jewellery, making, research, distributed collaboration
This practice-based research is an investigation into cross-disciplinary jewellery. The goal of this PhD research will be to establish a new disciplinary framework for the study of cross-disciplinary jewellery. To date there is disparate information on the use of cross-disciplinary research within the field of jewellery. This research will fill the gap, defining and extending the use of cross-disciplinary within the field of jewellery. This is a two-part research structure in which are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. The first part is based on a literature review and a number of existing cross-disciplinary jewellery artists and works to get a preliminary definition of cross-disciplinary jewellery. The second part is a further and deeper research into cross-disciplinary jewellery to provide a more complete definition for it by spotting more features through collaboration projects.