The research world can often seem to be one of perfection, excellence, and only for the ‘very best.’ As beginners in our field, we strive to produce the most rigorous, original, and exciting work. However, when we place so much value on ‘getting it right’ we can easily miss out on what ‘getting it wrong’ can bring, to both our personal and professional lives.

The Making from the Mess conference, aims to explore how often our greatest failures, weaknesses, and oversights, can birth our best work, leading us to new perspectives and fresh insight.

Your conference ticket includes lunch and refreshments provided by Central Street Cafe, based at our venue, St. Luke's Community Centre. Everything made from Central Street Cafe goes back into the local community, subsidising over 11,500 meals for older people every year.

If you have any dietary requirements, please let us know via the form. For any other dietary concerns, please contact makingfromthemess@gmail.com.

The schedule promises to be interdisciplinary and engaging - it may get a bit messy! There will be three parallel threads running throughout the day, you can either follow one thread or dip into different ones across the day:

Moments Thread*:

Through our moments thread, we hope to showcase the creative practice(s) of Technē students. Take a moment out of the conference schedule to visit our exhibition, or come along to a performance or workshop.

*Our moments thread is continuously running throughout the day, sign-up via the form is not necessary (excluding performances).

Mediums Thread:

Our mediums thread invites you to explore different mediums, giving way to new paths of inquiry. Come and have a go in our series of interactive workshops.

Methods Thread:

Are you tied up in methodologies? Come unravel different approaches with no experience necessary.

Panels are also taking place during the day, please see schedule below and book on via the form:

Schedule:

Session 1: 10-11am

Moments Thread: continuous

Mediums Thread: Bruce Haines

"A Game of Cards"

Partipants will play a game of cards, or consequences, playing with an anthropology of emerging art galleries by turning transcripts into scripts, while anonymising, disorganising, reassembling and re-narrating current and historical anecdotes or observations. Will anything emerge worth holding onto? Join technē student Bruce Haines for this interactive session.

Methods Thread: Inger Newburn a.k.a. The Thesis Whisperer

"Kicking the Can Down the Road"

Inger will tell the story of her recent research collaboration 'PostAc'. This story delves into the messy way that research comes together and relies on ad-hoc relationships and partial plans to work. Inger will use 'a bit of Actor Network Theory' to reflect on how precariousness in research (particularly running out of money) can sometimes be a strength that lets work evolve and allows people to be responsive to opportunities.

Reflections on Mess and Research Panel:

Technē DTP students from various disciplinary backgrounds discuss their research, papers will be approx. 15 mins in length and each followed by a short Q&A.

Martha Rose Beard: 'Working with oral history : a reflective discussion of ethics and practice'.

Tim Cowbury: 'Messy Making Processes' (Final Title TBC -please see website)

Renée Landell: 'Why Jezebel?: (S)exploitation and the Sugar Plantation'

For more information on the student-led panel, including paper abstracts and contributor bios please visit the website.

Session 2: 11:30-12:30pm

Moments Thread (Performance: please select on form if you wish to attend): Cécile Varry and Camille Adnot

This poetry performance invites you to dive back into the primeval chaos - if the primeval chaos were a mess made of words. It explores the web of intertextual and intertemporal echoes in poetic myths of beginnings, through a mixture of layered recordings and live readings.

With this collage soundscape, we hope to recreate the sometimes harmonious, sometimes cacophonous mess of reading rich or difficult texts - and make a messy myth of our own.

Mediums Thread: Rosina Godwin

"Holes, Tangles and Bad Tension – A Celebration of Ineptitude in Knitting"

Knitting is often viewed as a laborious, female orientated pastime, demanding row upon row of perfect stitches.This workshop aims to challenge the craft associations of knitting, by playing with materials and exploring the possibilities of simple techniques to create art. Using a variety of materials (yarns, twine, strips of fabric and recycled materials), participants will be to knit, crochet, stitch or wrap a paper based former, to create their own experimental sculpture. The short timescale forces spontaneous working, using large needles, chunky threads and clashing colours. Beginners are welcome, with mistakes viewed as part of the creative process. Holes, ladders and uneven tension enhance the effect – the untidier the work, the better the final result!

There will also be additional samples on display, exploring combining textiles with sculptural materials, devoré techniques with acid, and heat fusing and melting plastics and synthetic fabrics.

Methods Thread: Queer(ing) Methodologies Roundtable led by Dr. Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain

This discussion will begin to unpick queer methods and methodologies, how they can give way to new paths of inqurity and the potential challenges of these approaches. Facilitated by Dr Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain, based in the Department of English at Royal Holloway, University of London. Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain has most recently explored the 'Queer Troublemaker' through close readings of Gertrude Stein, Frank O’Hara, Eileen Myles and Maggie Nelson.

For more on this roundtable or to register interest as a participant, please email makingfromthemess@gmail.com

Session 3: 1:30-1:30pm

Moments Thread: continuous

Mediums Thread: Summer Phillips

"Fluidity, Creativity and Random Stupidity"

An open-minded exploration of creativity and it’s place within academic existence. Exploring notions of fluidity of self, where creation stems from, ownership verses wildness, how to play with expectation whilst vibrantly harnessing all that is possible. We will be working mainly with idea creation and exploring the inner worlds of ourselves and others through speculative thought and creative writing. Don’t worry! You all have something amazing to bring. It’s actually already there. Whatever your medium of expression or field of study, this session will ask why wild messiness is much needed within academia. Come and explore the possibles during this enticing and intriguing session!

Methods Thread: Cathering Pope

"How to Be a Note-taking Ninja with Evernote and Trello"

Are your notes in a mess? Do you lack an effective system for storing and organising your research material? In this lively and practical workshop, you’ll explore two digital tools to help you impose order on the chaos: Evernote and Trello. Through demonstrations and discussions, you will learn how you can use them to build an effective process that’s right for you.

Panel: PhD Alumni Experience with Katie Carpenter, Gillian McIver, Fearghus Roulston, Louise Gray

Facilitated by Martha Beard, this panel will ask Alumni PhD students to reflect upon their own PhD journey – ‘mess’ and all! Each participant will explain the route of their own career path during and after their doctorate and they will use their own distinct experience to shed light on key issues such as career development/advice, assessment and progression points, time management, teaching and writing.

Questions and impromptu discussion is warmly invited!

Session 4: 2:30-3:30pm

Moments Thread: Renée Landell

"On the Plantationocene: Racialising Space & Spacialising Race"

Join technē student Renée as she facilitates an interactive workshop, beginning with a short introduction to the Plantationocene, participants will then interrogate texts, sharing thoughts on on topics such as environmental racism, multi-species labour, and the plantation as an embodied space. The session is a great introduction to Caribbean literature and its rich linguistic and cultural qualities.

Mediums Thread: Decorating Dissidence

"Craft Your Drafts!"

Take your ‘failed’ writing attempts and weave them into something new with Decorating Dissidence. As researchers, we know what it’s like to be drowning in drafts, from copious notes clogging up our iPhone storage and pieces of teenage poetry that never saw the light of day, to the building blocks of our research projects. Drafts and notes are an important part of the writing process, helping us clarify our thoughts and refine our ideas. But what do you do with them when you move on? At this workshop, we’ll talk through our writing processes before crafting a cathartic piece from recycled paper to re-energise our ideas. Through the hands-on paper weaving process, we'll explore new models of creativity and inject new life into old ideas by experimenting with text, colour, structure, and images.

Whether you’re a PhD student, creative writer, or email hoarder – rip it up and start again!

You should bring: any draft material you want to use in your paper creations

We’ll also provide: magazines, colourful paper and our own drafts to use.

Hosted by Jade French and Lottie Whelan , this interdisiplinary arts project explores the dissident intersect between feminisim, the arts and modernism through the lens of "craft". Having already hosted ‘Decorating Dissidence: Feminism, Modernism and the Arts’, an exhibition, conference, and workshop at Mile End Arts Pavilion and Queen Mary University of London in 2017, as well as a follow up symposium last year, the session promises to open up debate s regarding modernism and the direction of feminist modernist studies.

Methods Thread: Ruth Hansford

"Making Sense of Messy Listening"

Ruth Hansford brings a background in languages and literature to her PhD which has the working title: What does it mean to have a musician’s ear? Listening to musicians. Her project involves listening to classical musicians’ stories about their changing relationship with their ears. In this session she invites you to think about how we might get the most out of interviews, striking a balance between the researcher’s desire to collect rich stories and the need to remember the practicalities. We will think about messy stories, messy memory and messy data, and about how to be messy listeners with a deadline!

Keynote Address: Dr. Emma Brodzinski

Dr Emma Brodzinski is a senior lecturer in Royal Holloway's Drama department. She also facilitates the technē "Breathing Space" programme, which supports DTP students in their well-being throughout the PhD journey. Doing research alongside her work as a fertility coach and therapist, Emma will bring her persepective on making from the mess. We are so pleased to welcome Emma to the conference and look forward to hearing from her!

For more details and contributor biographies please visit our website.

https://www.makingfromthemess.com/