Paper short abstract:

This presentation will discuss an anthropological programme of work in-the-making concerned with questioning, proposing and exploring new ideas of form and formation. The specific focus will be on a creative workshop - a Bauhaus Dessau 'Open Studio' - the outcomes of which are as-yet-unknown.

Paper long abstract:

Here I present an anthropological programme of work in-the-making and focus on a particular event within this programme, also currently in-the-making. This overarching programme of work is to anthropologically question, explore, propose and develop alternative and/or new possibilities of form and corresponding practices of formation. To date, this has involved me - as anthropologist and designer - teaching and working in design studios with fellow learners and practitioners, collaborating on projects and observing everyday work practices. My next stage of this exploration is to undertake a week long workshop with twelve student/practitioner filmmakers, glass makers, illustrators and graphic, interior, product and textile designers from the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, where we will together explore ideas of formation across our disciplines through discussion, drawing, making, recording and presenting.

This workshop will be held as a Bauhaus Dessau Foundation 'Open Studio' in February 2018. The title we have developed is 'Dis/Ordering Design: Norms, Forms and Storms' and by this agenda we aim to explore the descriptive and creative practices which shape order within each of our respective disciplines and explore the possibilities of methodological disorder and disciplinary difference for informing new ways of perceiving, knowing, making and projecting.

For the conference I wish to discuss this overarching programme of work and present the as-yet-unknown outcomes of this workshop, and in doing so, consider what it means to purse anthropology as an uncertain practice of imagination and social change.