On 4 September 2019 our research team had the privilege of hosting Tristan Schultz at UTS. Tristan ran a participatory workshop for us on Design’s Role in Transitioning to Futures of Cultures of Repair. Tristan is one half of the creative firm Relative Creative, which he runs with Bec Barnett. Relative Creative design communication, strategies and experiences that help people think, talk and mobilise sustainable futures. For this workshop we were joined by Associate Professor Ilaria Vanni Accarigi, Professor Cameron Tonkinwise, and Tim Boykett (Time’s Up).
The workshop gave us a great chance to openly discuss and distill decolonising strategies for thinking about cultures of repair. It also enabled us to share our distinct approaches to repair literature, which included everything from discussions on Aboriginal cultures of repair, to critiques of Heidegger, to Elizabeth Guffey on steam punk and discussions of gambiarra in Brazil and jugaard in India. There was a great deal of discussion about how to trace historical patterns of concealment, newness and care, and how these might be reconfigured in the present, via transculturation and connectivity. Also Tom Lee thought a lot about melted cheese, see previous blog post. And Jesse Adams Stein talked about class and its relationship to colonialism and capitalism (she’s always going on about class). Cameron Tonkinwise talked about the invisibility of things until they’re broken (and critiques of that Heideggarian position). And Kate Scardifield told us some amazing things about sails.
Repair Design 