A hand is not simply part of the body, but the expression and continuation of a thought which must be captured and conveyed. (Honore Balzac, Le Chef d’oeuvre inconnu, in Merleau-Ponty, 1964: 18)
Reflecting on my journey as a Student studying Drawing and Contemporary Practices at La Sorbonne, then Product Design at CSM or Social Design at Design Academy Eindhoven, there was always this feeling that intellectual subject and in fact, my head was more important than my hands.
This separation put making in the secondary plan and not recognised as a valued skill by the academic world.
From my day in the 300 seats lecture hall in La Sorbonne talking about the Walter Benjamin theory of Arts versus Craftsman to the Chris Lefteri lecture at CSM and the theoretical lessons about how to make things or what things are made of… There has always been this weird feeling that materiality and making are crucially missing in my curriculum.
For someone who is dyslexic, learning through my hands has always been essential, feeling, smelling, and moving to create this experience and memory that words simply don’t.
Even in the case of learning skills, the complex sequence of movements and spatiotemporal relationships is unconsciously internalized and embodied rather than intellectually understood and
remembered – Pallasma, J
This growing frustration that I felt that I was not making enough grew across my time in the BA at CSM, often being told that they care more about the concept than the result or the making story.
There is indeed a link between making and storytelling – this oral tradition of showing and creating visual/physical experiences which perhaps for students experiencing problems with the conceptual idea of design or to conceptualise design or simple concepts.
The common overhead comments of “lovely object but the superficial concept” echo still in my ears, making a clear distinction between students who were considered designers and the others who were makers as if the two could not be recognized or simply of the makers were not intellectual enough to be in a degree. These comments made by tutors or “practice lead” tutors carried on the already established hierarchy between design and makers or academics and technicians.
This power dynamics was embodied in the relationships between Tutors or academics and technicians, which tensions, miss communications or simply seen as two organs working independently in the core of institutions. Caring for the traditions of the artist and his makers which many fine arts or designers have; the head being the artist or designers and the hands and arms being the technicians.
This traditional dichotomy carries of course the notion of social classes, or imperialism and colonialism on which capitalist societies thrive * (Tanah Bunga Siagian and Ismal Munaha – Making Matters a Vocabulary for Collective Arts)
The idea of collectiveness between Academics or Technicians as teaching staff and equal teaching practitioners carries on today making the teaching experience difficult, administrative and flimsy. Technicians are still today peripheral and not central actors in the teaching curriculum leading some students today to see them as problem solvers, service providers or fabricators more than valued teaching staff.
Up to today, they have very little input into the curriculum decisions or are often not represented in curriculum programming meetings.
This frustration is something I saw and felt but also experienced as students being in crossed fires and pushed around by busy and frustrated technicians often at the end of the line in my design project development or decisions not being invited to tutorials or project briefings.
I was surprised that this subjective experience was also shared by a renowned designer in the top design school of the UK, the Royal College of Art and at the level of a Master’s degree :
I’d say my work is about the material — not necessarily a pure material, though I am very singular, very mono-material. It’s funny, like Martino I was frustrated as a student at the RCA because of the workshops — there was a waiting list to get access to a technician because we weren’t allowed to use the machinery ourselves. I went to the RCA wanting workshops, and I left having not used them: all of my work was self-produced outside the college walls or at another part of the college. I worked with laser cutters. I went to the beach in Cornwall to cast furniture. I created my workshops and facilities. I’m not a very good designer, but I’m quite a good maker. My work designs itself through the process of making. It happens; it evolves – Mark Lamb Pin up 34 2023 magazine – Emmanuel Olunkwa
Here again, the same differentiation between being a designer and a maker, yet Max Lamb is considered a UK leading designer, working with international industrial brands such as Kvadrat or smaller brands such 1882 Ltd.
This “made by hand” became the signature and the design identity of Max Lamb’s design, this permanent “making process” look and the blurriness between the sketch model and the outcome made the success of his studio across the world. Almost as a brutal art and craft movement in the UK.
Enabling the hands seems to think or the design seems to have been a moto in Max Lambs or Martino Gampers career but question the relationship that designers have with the world they are designing for and with.
“You become a designer by engaging with the physical world,” Max Lamb Financial Times Sept 29 2023
This is a core element to today’s UAL curriculum agenda, yet this making and materiality aspect of the teaching is relayed to the background with a focus on the academic subjects, aligning with the UK government educational policies and their emphasis on Math, Physic and English in Secondary education and Higher Education (* Art under threat The growing crisis in higher education, Sam Philips 20 March 2019 – RA), making dominant educational systems which attach little intellectual and economical value to making, regarding it as soft skill with low priority.
Perhaps this question also lies in the differentiation between Diplomas and Degrees and making a subject more linked to an apprenticeship than critical thinking, as opposed to the critical-making culture in the USA or the Dutch Design culture in the Netherlands which proposes a revisit of society, industrialisation, landscape, culture, colonisation, capitalistic economy but also of our relationship and power dynamics with the environment.
While the importance of materiality in Dutch Design education has been recognized, in England education has been increasingly focused on the heads rather than the hands of the students –
If we look at the number of classes in the workshop teaching lead, the physical place of the workshop in the University often placed far away from studios and classrooms, the limited booking slots system with limited workshop hours or the number of theory classes compared to the making classes.
Yet if we consider the campaign of de funding the arts or the crisis of living in the UK with Arts universities becoming more and more technological and costly perhaps this reflects as well in the place-making and materiality in the curriculum as more time-consuming and more bespoke teaching.
Nevertheless, the need to include embodied process or materiality as knowledge can be reconciled with the idea of recycling or repurposing material as a cost saver, perhaps the question lies in a hybrid style of teaching, collectivity amongst teaching staff (academics and technicians) but also among students and DIY culture or critical making.
This investigation led to think of an ARP question:
How can we integrate making and materiality knowledge in the pedagogical process in higher education?
and a Sub-question Could hybrid lessons between studios and workshops, create a pattern of teaching including embodied and material learning?
Bibliography
Hooks, B. (1994) Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. London: Routledge.
Friere, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed . London: Continuum.
Pallasmaa, J. (2009) The Thinking hands Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture, Wiley.
Pallasma, J (2017) Embodied and Existential Wisdom in Architecture: The Thinking Hand, Vol. 23(1) 96–111 Body & Society, Sage.
Wesseling, J and Cramer, F. (2022) Making Matters, A vocabulary for Collective Arts, Valiz.
Ratto, M. (2011) Critical making: Conceptual and Material studies in technology and social life. The Information Society27, no.4 pp 252-60
Hertz, G. (2012) Critical Making, Telharmomium
Olunkwa, E. (2023) Martino Gamper and Max Lamb Pin up 34.
Available online
https://www.pinupmagazine.org/articles/martino-gamper-and-max-lamb-interview
Roux, C. (September 29 2023) Designer Max Lamb: “Touch, touch, touch”, Financial Times.
available online
https://www.ft.com/content/616b92de-6f14-4d72-8714-65b0b95f1f4d
Philips, S. (20 March 2019) Art under threat: The growing crisis in higher education, RA website
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/art-under-threat-crisis-britain-higher-education