Block Seminar Design Theory 3rd semester
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The module takes place over 1 week, from 09-13.09.24, from Monday to Friday, 9.00-17.00 - see timetable below for details.
Topic
As we rediscover materialities in a digital world, we are confronted with a growing need to understand how things are made, where they come from, which knowledge, legacies, and traditions are embedded in them, and how those things are transported, discarded, and recycled by whom, and where, etc. These questions tie with a general concern for environmental impacts of consumerism and waste, and the human rights entangled with them. The very finite materials that are being mined in remote locations by exploited labor demonstrate the extension to which extractivism damages local ecosystems and cultural heritage.
These notions of material flows through geography, history, trade agreements, mining of indigenous resources, migrations are now crucial to grasp for a study of making, craft and fabrication.
Objectives of the course
This seminar aims to tie the larger socio-economic context of material sourcing and transformation together with practices of fabrication.
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| Mon 9.09 - Past <> Trade | Tu 10.09 - Future <> MaterialsGeologies | We 11.09 - | Th 12.09 - Present <> | Fr 13.09 - |
|---|---|---|---|---|
9.00
| 9.00
| 9.00
| All day: Independent study -
| Morning: Upload assignment 4 |
Afternoon: Field study - tracing materials in Switzerland - finding the source & the labour Independent study - Prepare assignment 1 | Afternoon:
| Afternoon: Field study - visit ABB Independent study - Prepare assignment 3 | 13.30
| |
- True Cost / Fast Fashion
- Story of Things
- No Cap / Agriculture
- Readings:West Africa
- Kate Meagher, Laura Manna and Maxim Bolt, "Making the Right Connections: Globalization, Economic Inclusion and African workers". Journal of Development Studies. 2016.
- Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, “Labour Recruitment in the Nineteenth Century: The Place of Practicality” (Ch. 2). In Mediators, Contract Men, and Colonial Capital: Mechanized Gold Mining in the Gold Coast Colony, 1879-1909, University of Rochester Press, 2018.
Silk Road - Hansen, Valerie. (2012). The Silk Road: A New History. New York, Oxford University Press. Read Intro in depth and browse the rest of the book for general overview.
- You, Mi. (2018). Silk Roads, Tributary Networks and Old and New Imperialism. Extra States: Nations in Liquidation. C. Edwards and i. Fokianaki. Antwerp, Kunsthal Extra City.
Cotton - Sven Beckert, "Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War". The American Historical Review, Vol. 109, No. 5 (December 2004), Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association.
Giorgi Riello, "The Globalization of cotton textiles. Indian Cottons, Europe, and the Atlantic World, 1600–1850". In Prasannan Parthasarathi and Giorgio Riello, eds,The Spinning World: A GlobalHistory of Cotton Textiles, 1200-1850(Oxford, 2009).
Other:
ExtrACTION: Impacts, Engagements, and Alternative Futures" edited by Kirk Jalbert, Anna Willow, David Casagrande, and Stephanie PaladinCradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things" by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Permaculture
Powers diagram
Mineral Rites: An Archaeology of the Fossil Economy" by Bob Johnson
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four MealsJames Clifford, Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press, 2013.
Melissa K. Nelson (ed.), Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future, Bear & Company, 2008.
Melissa K. Nelson & Dan Shiling (eds.), Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Macarena Gomex-Barris, The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives, Duke Uniersity Press, 2017.
Jan Zalasiewicz, The Planet in a Pebble. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, ‘MishkosKenomagwen, the Lessons of Grass: Restoring Reciprocity with the Good Green Earth.” The Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
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- Readings:
- To prepare before class starts (optional):
- To read Monday 9.09:
- To read Tuesday 10.09
- To read Wednesday 11.09 (two in depth + one browsed)
on 11.09 Optional readings:
Reminder: For each paper, you need to send response notes: underline 2-3 points that sparked questions and possibly points that you felt should have been addressed in the paper or that you want to challenge.
Use the Reading guideline to comment on the texts.