DESIGNA — International Conference on Design Research

Erlend Hua Lun Kok on 2. October 2024

Clothing researchers Ingun Grimstad Klepp and Kate Fletcher will be part of opening the DESIGNA – CITIZENSHIP International Conference on Design Research in Covilhã Portugal the 24th and 25th October by presenting in the first plenary session at 10:30. Their talks are outlined below.

Multispecies citizens, clothing, design and nature – Professor Kate Fletcher

Ecological emergencies are intensifying to the point of earth system collapse. Fashion clothes and the systems that create them are deeply implicated in these emergencies. Garments are entangled with consumerist ideologies, with individualism, excess and wastefulness. They are also predicated – in the Modern West – on the notion that humans are separate from, and above, nature and that nature and its resources are for human’s unlimited use. Breaking with this approach, in this talk I will explore design themes and actions of nature relations, drawing on stories from my work with clothing. I will explore extending ideas of citizenship to include the greater-than-human world, the role of limits and direct sensory experience of the body in design.  

Clothing consumers as citizens, and the role of design – Professor Ingun Grimstad Klepp

The image of consumers is far from the one of citizens, but all of us are both. In this paper I will explain how I as a consumer researcher understand the deep conflicts in this image and how it impacts the possibility of finding more sustainable solutions. As an guest in the design family I will explore the challenges at the border between consumer research and sustainable design and with that acknowledge both the great potential – and limitation of designing clothes for citizens

For more information regarding the conference, click here.

Imagining Future(s): Mining Literacies of Sustainable Consumption

Erlend Hua Lun Kok on 21. August 2024

Abstract

This study is about mining the past to better understand how we imagine and shape the future. The present report is a deliverable from Work Package 1: “Mine” in the research project IMAGINE: Contested Futures of Sustainability. WP1 aimed to construct a conceptual framework based on Paul Ricoeur’s study of the concept of imagination and to gather data about the imaginaries of the past. To identify dominant imaginaries, WP1 highlighted the diachronic nature of imaginaries to understand better how past, present and future times are interlinked and restrict or enable ways of thinking about the future. The Ricoeurian approach of imagination is the Ariadne’s thread of the conceptual part, while the empirical data follows the threefold consumption approach of IMAGINE focused on eating, dressing and moving. By combining theoretical and empirical perspectives, we developed a framework for the analysis of the data material, where self-reflection, reciprocity, dialogue, and re-figuration play a central role.

The study presents imaginaries found in at least 10 well-known movies, 10 renowned novels and cartoons, and 10 advertisements over the past generation, explicitly dealing with the sustainable future (30 in total). Furthermore, the report provides an analogous analysis of policy documents (white papers, strategy papers, policy reports) and business strategy documents from three time periods (1980-2000-2020) for each of our three cases of eating, dressing and moving (30 in total).

Click here to read the full report.

Holding on or letting go: Conflicting narratives of product longevity

Erlend Hua Lun Kok on 30. July 2024

Authors: Lisbeth Løvbak Berg, Marie Hebrok

Abstract

Increasing product longevity is seen as an effective way to reduce consumption within the circular economy. This paper explores narratives of product longevity, focusing on textiles, household appliances, and furniture as expressed by Norwegian business representatives and consumers. The study reveals dominant narratives of physical and emotional durability among businesses. Conversely, consumers emphasise managing consumption volumes and their relationship with products based on use contexts and life events. While both groups recognise the importance of physical durability, there’s a disconnect regarding how emotional attachment can be created between user and product, and the significance of production volumes. The study suggests that narratives of product longevity, shift focus from production to consumption, distancing from questions of volume and growth and that efforts should take ‘life durability’ of products into account when designing strategies and interventions aimed at extending product lifespans, including business models and policy directly targeting lower production volumes.

Click here to download and read the full article, or contact Lisbeth Løvbak Berg at lisbethl@oslomet.no.

The way forward for WOOLUME

Erlend Hua Lun Kok on 21. May 2024

As the Woolume project comes to an end after three and a half fruitful years, a new project note has been published.

Economics and scale are important themes, especially for moving forward with better use of local wool. As identified in other projects, things need to happen in the right order and there must be an economic fundament that ensures a professionalism and not that what one does is done on a hobby basis. The skills gap is an important issue if there is to be a future for the wool industry in Europe, and this must be addressed at national and EU level, this is not something a project or industry can fix on their own.

WOOLUME has been a bilateral project with only two countries involved, and few project-partner institutions. Usually projects involve more countries, many more institutions and therefore also are ’messier’ in the way that one needs to involve all actors in several research questions and WPs. On the other hand, the research in more complexly structured projects is often more limited and must stick to one problem-definition in order to make the project doable.

If we are going to be scaling textile industry in Europe, based on our local resources and better use of them, many things must happen at the same time. One is that those who grant money for research must be aligned with the planetary boundaries and with making a positive impact for planet, people and animals. The zealots also must have room to ‘play’ outside the strict confinements of complex EU funding, which most probably must be backed by national governments, who see the value of being self-sufficient not only when it comes to food, but also for textiles.

Summary

This note looks at knowledge transference between a country of high wool utilisation (Norway) and a country of low wool utilisation (Poland). The findings that are presented here, are collected through semi-structured interviews, via Zoom, in person and also with one written response. All interviewees were project partners. Economics and scale are important themes, especially for moving forward with better use of local wool. As identified in other projects, things need to happen in the right order and there must be an economic fundament that ensures a professionalism and not that what one does is done on a hobby basis. The skills gap is an important issue if there is to be a future for the wool industry in Europe, and this must be addressed at national and EU level, this is not something a project or industry can fix on their own.

Click here to read full report.

Wild Dress

Erlend Hua Lun Kok on 26. April 2024

Image credit: Charlie Meecham

Launch: Hawkwood May Day Festival
Monday 6 May 2024 12-5pm
Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking
Pianswick Old Road
Stroud GL6 7QW

Wild Dress, a collection of my stories about clothing and the natural world was first published in 2019 by Uniform Books. The collection is about life, living and dressing in entanglement with ecological systems, recognising that these things – clothes and nature – cannot be separated. Written and spoken by Kate Fletcher, Wild Dress is created with immersive sound designer Carolyn Downing and director/dramaturg Zoë Svendsen.

Now Wild Dress has been transformed into an immersive sonic artwork in a collaboration between the theatre maker and dramaturg Zoë Svendsen, award-winning sound artist Carolyn Downing and me. 

The core of the artwork are five sonic pieces, geolocated in woods around Hawkwood House, and accessible through the app Echoes. Here audiences can move through the woods and listen to delicately crafted audio pieces. The simplicity of walking and listening, experiencing the woods and experiencing stories of clothing and nature has a beautiful symmetry, the pieces feeling like an extension of body-land. They are available in the grounds of Hawkwood until at least the end of summer 2024. A map of the zones for each of the stories is below.

The Launch day also layered many other elements. There was a rail of clothes ready to be borrowed, each with different affordances impact the experience of moving and listening, and a cassette tape describing the features on hand.

There were two Saori looms hosted by Nicola and Ali from Stroud-based Wayward Weaves and Periscope respectively, and after listening, the audience was invited to weave some ‘fabric’ with natural materials gathered from the woods. The weave became a recording of a day’s worth of conversations about clothing and the living world, interlacing one with the other.

And there was the remarkable performer Tamzin Griffin who told excerpts of stories from Wild Dress and a later book Outfitting (2022). I watched, mesmerised as she filled out the words and extended them, and they became alive different to and apart from me. It was an honour to witness, a privilege, and personally very affecting. 

Huge thanks to all those who supported on the day and across the years that this has been in development: Metis, ArtsAdmin, Hawkwood Centre for Future Thinking, Arts Council England.

How to participate

To experience Wild Dress you will need to bring a smartphone and your own
headphones. You will also need to download the ‘echoes’ app, which is free: this can be done in advance. Please see here for further details: https://metisarts.co.uk/wild-dress/listening