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Children’s clothing collections, problems and perspectives: A case study of French and British Museums
Get PDFDespite the abundance of children's clothes in the collections of European Museums, children's fashion remains marginal. Mostly considered as a pale and insignificant reflection of adult's fashion, children's clothes have hardly been subjects of consistent collection and documentation. Indeed, instead of systematically reflecting the evolution of children's dress from all levels of society, the collecting of children's fashion is generally based on random family donations. These collections do not reflect the reality of everyday garments worn by multiple users and mended until they become rags at all levels of society. Due to the disappearance of this material, museums overlook children's clothing practices. Consequently, research on children's clothing has to be based on polarised sources: commercial archives of producers and personal memories of wearers. Through case studies from French and British Museums, this paper analyses the disinterest in children's material culture and its effect on our understanding children’s culture and socialisation. It explores the benefits of a strategic approach to the collection of children's material culture, moving away from a solely adult focus to enhance children's interactions with and learning from historic objects
Finding Joy in Place, Space and Time
No full textOur relationships with objects and others are what define us as human and individuals. Each person has an individual network of connections, from the intangible and ephemeral nature of our shared memories, to our senses, which physically root us within our environments. In this issue we want to explore connection across its multitude of forms, its existence within the human condition and as a physical manifestation.
This theme was conceived through a discussion on loneliness in the city, how our urban environment is pushing us further from each other and how these interpersonal relations can be bridged, broken and repaired. While loneliness and connection speak to a human condition, we believe these matters can physically manifest through how we build and design, physical and emotional connection are deeply intertwined.
In this issue we want to explore connection at every scale. That could be the borders between communities or even down to a letter received from a friend. We also want to explore it in many forms; proposals, poetry, image, articles, anything that relays your message best
Modelling Patient-Therapist Collaboration for Brain Injury Rehabilitation in Virtual Reality
Get PDFIn the era of digital transformation, the utilisation of Virtual Reality (VR) applications in brain injury rehabilitation presents a novel
frontier with vast potential. However, concerns persist about how traditional communication pathways between therapists and patients can be transformed into digital equivalents. Immersive virtual reality submerses patients in a virtual world, with therapists taking the role of external spectators. This has implications for the therapeutic alliance (TA), which is based on interpersonal bonds and effective communication between therapist and patient. This study investigated the use of immersive VR in clinical settings for the rehabilitation of acquired brain injury (ABI). The aim was to understand how to design a smart virtual therapeutic system that can be adapted to various needs of patients and therapists during the intervention. Through observation and semi-structured interviews, patient-therapist interactions were analysed during VR-assisted and traditional rehabilitation sessions, revealing challenges related to effective collaboration. Findings indicated changes in interaction and communication with the introduction of VR: informal dialogue decreased, while shared laughter and therapist feedback increased. Despite the visual disconnect imposed by VR headsets,therapists continued to use guiding gestures and engaged with patients. Interviews highlighted the importance therapists place on rapport-building, and both relied on each other for expertise and reassurance. This research offers valuable insights into the potential to transit, transform and enhance traditional rehabilitation practices with the use of virtual reality and suggests avenues for human-centred design of VR applications tailored to ABI rehabilitation and TA, ultimately enhancing therapeutic outcomes in this
domain
A dialectogram of Cumbernauld Town Centre
No full textA dialectogram of Cumbernauld's brutalist town centre megastructure, researched and drawn over a 2 year period as part of Concrete Dreams Project, a Creative Scotland funded collaborative project to document the complex social legacy of the building. I explored how illustration could be use to engage with the lived experience of this environment, as well as archives and ethnographic material collected and collated around it.
We engaged with social historical narratives and questions of architectural heritage, embodied carbon and the impact of design upon a community. The project was also an experiment in artistic collaboration as the shaping of the work took place alongside collaborative fieldwork with photographer Chris Leslie and novelist Alison Irvine
A Divided Landscape: A relational, qualitative investigation of falls prevention technology and services with older people and professionals in North and South Lanarkshire
No full textPrevious research has shown that fear of falling has a significant impact on mental health and wellbeing in older people. However, introduction of supportive technology can face complex challenges due to user’s fears and expectations around its use.
No Need to Fall aims to work with professionals, older people, and unpaid carers to co-create digitally enabled, relational, and proactive approaches which can prevent falls. The project is funded by the Health Foundation and is being done through a multi-organizational partnership led by Scotland’s Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre, NHS Lanarkshire, and the University of Strathclyde. In the first phase, we used participatory workshops and semi-structured interviews to understand the professional landscape and lived experiences of older people.
Our initial research showed two significant gaps. First, on-the-ground professionals struggled to coordinate care due to organisational and IT barriers. Their lack of access created a disparity in their professional relationships and limited their ability to follow up on changes to care. Second, older people had little awareness of falls prevention services, and avoided engagement with supportive technology due to their fears around ageing, loss of control, and personal blame. This creates anxiety in their relationships with caregivers.
In our next phase, we plan to work with on-the-ground professionals to co-create new digital tools which can coordinate care in the event of a fall. Second, we will work with older people and carers to explore how relationships which support falls prevention can be mediated through mutual ownership, goal alignment, and data sharing
Video: Michael Stubbs, Solo Exhibition Talk, Liverpool Hope University, 2024
No full textAs an expanded remit for this solo exhibition, I gave a public/university lecture which was videoed. The talk was intended to focus on the inclusion of digital posters into my paintings and their pairing up as double panels. Having previously given a similar lecture at the same venue in 2017 (which was also videoed), rather than offering an overview of my entire career from 1990, I condensed the various phases of my earlier work in order to frame my current practice. From a critique of gestural painting as consumerist object in my stacked or 'cake' paintings, through various post 'cake' experiments where I attempted to re-discover whether painting was possible again (after it's so called 'death'), I described how I arrived at the relations between the exploratory act of creating paintings, their context and presentation and how that includes an awareness of the role of digital images.
Additionally, I included wider contextual concerns by introducing historical and contemporary artists that have influenced my thinking and development. I also offered autobiographical details to flesh out not only the kinds of social and artistic conditions that were available to me (such as the lack of London galleries and the need to instigate independent spaces and studios in the early 90's), but also the tools and entrepreneurial skills necessary to manoeuvre a long-term career in the Fine Arts
Bravery and Participation: centring young adult voices to redesign relationships and sex education
Get PDFThe age at which many young people enter Higher Education (HE) is significant in exploring sexual identities, behaviours, and practices. High proportions of young adults in HE are reporting that they are left feeling unprepared for the reality of sex and relationships. Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) policy continues to be updated but often excludes the perspectives of the young people that it impacts the most.
This research aims to centre young adult voices to reimagine RSE. By adopting participatory methods to work with young adults who are currently studying in or about to begin studying in HE, I investigate how they feel about their experiences of RSE. Together,
they identify specific weaknesses, inequalities, and opportunities, and further engage with key educators and university welfare staff to propose actions to prompt the development of future educational practices and pedagogy.
Due to the ethically complex nature of the subject, a key focus of this research is to create brave spaces to support young people in authentically sharing experiences. The study aims to facilitate research through participatory design as a social innovation process. Creative practice was utilised to engage young people, and participatory design methods empowered participants to propose preferable futures informed by a critique of their collective experiences.
Findings identified that participatory design approaches can help facilitate connective spaces, mediate power dynamics, and ease stigma and discomfort, which in turn assists in critique and productive debate, challenging existing norms and actively confronting
oppression. This work advocates for participatory design to facilitate brave spaces for research, which is particularly valuable in research around relationships and sex, and may have value in other ethically complex fields.
It actively proposes action driven by young adults to improve RSE and outlines opportunities for educators to enact change in recommendations for more frequent, thorough, and normalised RSE, more inclusive RSE, and most significantly, the use of participatory approaches in RSE, which can engage and empower students as well as contributing to inclusion and normalisation. Furthermore, it identifies the potential benefit of creating brave spaces in RSE where young adults can feel empowered, address social norms and oppressions, and develop their critical thinking skills
MyoSITE – a site-specific mixed reality educational tool for Life Sciences
No full textThe MyoSITE project explored how to design a digital site-specific life-sciences educational tool that encompasses both the physical and digital sphere and how to present in this space a digital whole-cell model that accurately reflects the dense and differentiated environment of cellular mesoscales. A large animated digital cell model was created to fit the University of Glasgow Advanced Research Centre ARC-XR exhibition space. The mixed reality approach was used to explore the digital content of the model (heartbeat and its regulation within the cell), employing a hand tracking-enabled head-mounted display (HMD). Various types of immersion and interactions were explored for co-opting the digital material whilst retaining access to the outside of the digital environment. The application featured several magnification layers, allowing the user to examine and interact with differently sized molecular structures. The user experience in terms of usability and the educational potential of the application were probed as a part of the project. The multi-user aspect, site-specificity and scalar handling of the material was well received by the specialist panel. The MyoSITE application showed great potential as a proof-of-concept, and the project effectively illustrated the benefits of using extended reality (XR) technologies in life sciences education, emphasizing the importance of further research into mixed reality for this field
Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia Japonica): Realizing Non-Human Living Agency in the Anthropocene
No full textThe German physician, traveller and botanist Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866) introduced Japanese knotweed to Europe. He collected and cultivated Asian plant species and encouraged their transplantation in colder northern climates. Today, knotweed is seen as a hostile invader that threatens house foundations, challenges native species and resists legal measures to contain its spread. This thesis considers knotweed as an instigator of changing attitudes in the Anthropocene. It follows the plant's journey from East to West, from colonised to coloniser, and demonstrates how non-human species can resist commodification and exploitation.
The research explores the changing responses to Japanese knotweed since its introduction to Europe in the 19th century. It asks whether collaboration between the plant and human beings, by printing together, can change our perceptions of knotweed as a hostile invader. This research aims to raise awareness of the position of knotweed, create art alongside the plant that serves as political or social capital, and form partnerships with others to create a thriving and sustainable future beyond the Anthropocene. Therefore, the research centres on the non-human agency of Japanese knotweed, using participatory design and design activism methodologies to help identify and locate such agency within collaborative practice. This involves art and design activities such as zine-making, printing
workshops, online group activities, field studies (growing, foraging and gathering Japanese Knotweed), and papermaking with Japanese Knotweed. The goal is to demonstrate how art and design are powerful tools for political and social change and are particularly effective in ecological and environmental contexts. Furthermore, this thesis contributes to continuing debates on Japanese Knotweed as a dissonant force that stimulates critical analysis
of social, socioeconomic and political issues.
The thesis combines the theories of Participatory Design (PD) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT) with democratic design experiments, nature, and the integration of PD with design activism. By fully including knotweed as an actor and stakeholder in the design process, it becomes clear how its contribution to knowledge and response to the research questions emphasize the role of design as a form of protest against social injustice.
Japanese Knotweed became a perplexing phenomenon at the junction of environmental and political realms, transforming my artistic practice. After a previous career in fashion, influenced by the contemporary fashion industry's commodification and commercialization of textile products, I began a path that led me to academia, art, and activist design. The concept of the agency of materials in craft prompted me to draw connections between the environmental politics of landscape and the non-human agency exhibited by plants and plant materials. Reflecting the view that all design is embedded within societal roles and the responsibilities of individuals, I have transitioned into the role of an activist designer, collaborating with a nonhuman entity
Breaking ground, cripping mirrors; or lesbians don’t waltz by themselves: on Jacqui Duckworth’s A Prayer Before Birth
Get PDFThe third film of Jacqui Duckworth, A Prayer Before Birth (1991), shot in 16mm and running twenty minutes, might have gathered dust in the context of LGBTQ (sub)cultures and experimental British cinema in the years between it’s completion and the recent revival of interest in it’s director. In the space that emerges between fiction, personal experience and surrealism, A Prayer enacts an avant-garde lesbian aesthetic working to come to terms with being in a disabled body, that places the emotional turbulence of this experience front and centre while confronting affects through which ableism coheres. The film directly addresses the troubles of producing a (crip) lesbian gaze, a perspective that emerges via breakups, the deployment of melodramatic horror, and sitting at the table with emerging challenges of undertaking essential activities in life. It’s also in the space between crip embodiment, emotional turbulence and confronting ableism in which Duckworth’s synthesis of a crip lesbian visual language, through the character of Marsha as played by Adjoa Andoh, seems to encode a disabled black lesbian desire that diverges from Duckworth's autobiography – but more on that later. Centring the film, this essay discusses the substance of this synthesis, alongside the affective possibilities that are carried through it by the Director