I spoke at a design wales event last Friday 9th March about 10 things I have learnt about slow design…I will post more about it shortly but in the meantime here is a visual sketch that Laura Sorvala made of my presentation as I was speaking…
It’s been some time since posting anything but here is a recording from the Slow Summit which was held in July. I will add more reflections and information about new projects soon.
Off the page.
Following her comment on the Making a Slow Revolution blog Jane Freear-Wyld has been asked to contribute to the next episode of the Radio 4 ‘Off The Page’ show entitled ‘Instant Gratification’. Jane says: “I thought you all at Craftspace may be interested to know I’ve recently recorded an edition of ‘Off the page’ for Radio 4 on the theme of ‘instant gratification’, which airs on Thursday 16th June at 1.30pm. The invite came right out of the blue and is due to Mark Smalley, the producer, having read and liked what I posted onto the ‘Making a Slow Revolution’ blog Craftspace was in involved with. It’s incredible that almost 3 years later I should get this opportunity, and that the blog is still having a positive effect. As a tapestry weaver, ‘instant gratification’ is the complete antithesis of my working life which, by it’s very nature, is slow; and this was the stance I took on the subject.”
The BBC website descibes the show: “Cheap credit and immediate online access to infinite availability have contributed to one of the defining characteristics of our time – the ‘have it all’ culture of being able to instantly gratify our wants and needs. But at what cost? Dominic Arkwright explores the pleasures and pitfalls of instant gratification in the company of three speakers from very different walks of life. Representing the complete antithesis of the quick hit, tapestry weaver Jane Freear-Wyld shows Dominic a textile the size of a paperback, explaining how it takes 250 hours, or six working weeks, to make. Hers is a world away from the work of advertising creative director Matt Beaumont who arguably fuels our lust for not only jam today, but yesterday and tomorrow too. Meanwhile, Times columnist and writer Sathnam Sanghera, recently returned from a holiday in Mumbai, argues that it’s the recent shift towards instant gratification that is fuelling India’s rapidly rising standard of living, very different to an ethos that promises fulfilment neither now nor in in this life at all, but in the next one.”
Read Jane’s original post here: http://makingaslowrevolution.wordpress.com/contributors/
Listen to the article here
While Taking Time was at Plymouth Nigel Morgan and Alice Fox collaborated to create an artwork which was shown alongside the exhibition. Here is some background…
In February 2011 The Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival invited Nigel Morgan and Alice Fox to give the Festival Lecture alongside a performance of the Fifteen Images by the jazz pianist Matt Robinson. Simultaneously Alice Fox’s physical representation of Fifteen Images in textile-based media joined the Craftspace exhibition Taking Time: Making a Slow Revolution in Craft at Plymouth Museum. As part of Plymouth Museum’s programme surrounding Taking Time Nigel Morgan was commissioned by Craftspace and Peninsula Arts to create a ‘Plymouth Version’ of Fifteen Images for two performers to premiere in the museum in the final week of the exhibition.
In true Slow style it’s a belated Happy New Year from the Making a Slow Revolution site. 2010 was an extremely busy time for thinking and developing ideas around this blog and the ongoing Taking Time exhibition, which is currently in its 6th showing in Dumfries.
2011 may yet prove to be even busier with a Slow Summit being planned for July and a book idea in progress and two more venues on the exhibition tour to go. More news on this to follow.
In the meantime I visited the exhibition in Dumfries last Saturday and gave a talk and walk around the exhibition, whilst Paul Scott and Dawn Youll did a more conversational talk about their reflections on collaborative practice, which was chaired by Helen Voce. I particularly liked some of their thinking around physical and mental thinking spaces and how time seems to change in these spaces. I had been reading Rodinsky’s Room by Rachel Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair on the train to Scotland and it immediately took me to some sort of liminal space, which so often the thinking around this project does. I also very much enjoyed the way Amy Houghton’s piece, One centimetre is a little less than half an inch seemed to fit so well into the very institutional landscape of the Gracefield Art Centre, see below.
This was a little bit of time for reflection on a design project that Chelsea BA and MA Textile students were undertaking with Burberry. The students were asked to explore the area around Millbank and to reflect on some theories such as those of Slow Design.
Can a company such as Burberry be seen as at all Slow philosophically?
A difficult one really. I sought to ask questions and not to give answers necessarily. Here are some links you may be interested in:
The pages of my powerpoint below gives an idea of some of the questions I asked and starts with some of the work I do thinking through the making and thinking process in my own work and through projects that I do collaboratively such as walking, talking, making.
Unfortunately due to adverse weather conditions I have postponed my talk until 15th January when I will join the ‘Taking Time…To Talk’ discussion.
Please visit the Gracefield website for more information.
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