Get Together evening: Wednesday 9 December 2020, 5-7pm

Main Event: Thursday 10 December 2020, maker breakfast: 9-11am, reflections and workshops: 12.30-7pm

In craft and research practice to touch is often to make and to know. How do those who touch in their practice respond to the ‘new reality’? How can touch be simulated or evoked through digital means? How has our changed experience of touching over the past year challenged our haptic engagement?

The event will be made up of drop in and out reflective, practical and social sessions that aim to inspire and connect your peers.

Touch: Reflections on making is a collaborative event produced by the Crafts Council and the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England.

Ticket price

£12

If you register by 30 November and are based in the UK, we will send you a small postal goodie pack to enhance your participation to two of the workshops. The contents of the goodie pack will support the activities of the workshops but are not necessary in order to attend the workshops. All ticket holders will have access to all sessions.

What to expect

Touch: Reflections on making will take place on an online virtual conferencing platform* as a series of live and pre-recorded sessions.

Throughout the day there will be opportunities to hear about other practitioners’ reflections on touch, consider your own, share experiences, engage in practical exercises , seek and share advice and socialise with fellow makers, designers and artists.

Sessions

Maker Breakfast: tune in over your morning tea or coffee for a casual session of short ‘show and tell’ type presentations and demos to discover how experts from across craft, design and technology are experimenting with digital tools and making.

• Touch through film - Wuon-Gean Ho ( printmaker, research associate CFPR)
• Exploring tactile and visual stimulation for trauma recovery - Ariane Fourquier (weaver, researcher and painter)
• Reflections on handling but not touching during the making process - Tavs Jorgensen (ceramist, associate professor CFPR)
• Accessibility through touch - Fabio D'Agnano (architect, associate professor CFPR)
• Virtual collaboration and digital touch - Oluwaseyi Sosanya (craft engineer)
• Imprints and impacts - Constanza Dessain (print artist, PhD student CFPR and Reading School of Art)
• Touch between maker and material and material and audience - Laura Quinn (glass artist and technical tutor University for the Creative Arts)

Workshops: practical sessions that aim to inspire and support your practice.

• A feeling for light, led by Shelley James (glass artist). Material practice in a digital world. A brief history of theories of perception followed by practical experiments on lighting, movement and simple digital manipulation.

• Touching is believing, led by Niamh Fahy (artist and research associate at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE). Becoming sensitive to our surrounding environment. An invitation to take a walk in your local area and record experiences of reciprocal touch within your environment.

• Problem sharing/solving sessions, facilitated by MaDE and the Soft Systems Research Group led by Anne Toomey (head of textiles, RCA). An opportunity to share issues faced by practitioners regarding materials and making with mentors from the Soft Systems Research Group.

Reflections: longer presentations reflecting on touch in craft practice in academic, studio, educational and digital contexts. Confirmed speakers:

Guan Lee (architect, lecturer, director Grymsdyke Farm)

Sofie Boons (jewellery designer, research associate CFPR, UWE)

Abdollah Nafisi (designer craftsman Nafisi Studio)

Angie Butler (senior research fellow CFPR, UWE)

Plus, a media centre of pre-recorded and archival material and a digital exhibition of innovative work by the Centre for Fine Print Research.

Where is it

The event will take place online on the virtual conferencing platform Remo. *

The programme is designed in a way that allows you to choose how much or how little to engage. You will be able to drop in and out of the sessions, interact with others on a one to one basis, engage in practical exercises or turn off your camera and microphone and “sit out” of sessions completely in a virtual break space.

*More details on the online platform we will be using, and detailed joining instruction will be shared closer to the event.