The pressure for designers to know their contributions and be accountable for both the benefit and harm they provide is an ever increasing imperative of design practice. Yet the personal burdens of growing this reflexivity are rarely seen in material ends. Through my recent practice utilizing elements of textile craft & graphic design I have attempted to make these burdens better seen in material ends. It is my belief that by doing so I can give insight to the pain that comes in keeping account of the personal in a field that focuses towards service of the communal. The use of a material end is one that offers clarity because it is easier to be known by what I make then by what I say. It is a starting point of accountability that gives agency. This agency is my ability to work through the negotiations found in working with materials that challenge my ways forward and force a convergence of tactics and strategy. The scale is small and the consequences are manageable. This grants a familiarity to resolving problems found in manifesting material ends that can be transferred to a scale that is larger, collaborative, and often times with higher stakes.
Additionally , learning through a multitude of material disciplines contributes back to my former and future practices of design because it offers a plurality of problem solving capabilities and a literacy of the visual. It allows for a personal scale that can be transferred to a public one while having a better sense of where I am in the work I do as a designer.
What you see below is a body of work that speaks to these processes, something I’ve termed keeping material account.
“ANY THOUGHTS…?” Machine punch card knitted.
Materializing: monotonous clinical conversations. Accountability of a disconnected but comforting form.
The Making
