Workshop 1 – OBSERVE/ COLLECT/ CATEGORIZE 

When preparing for the first workshop and thinking about activities around material understanding , repair and re-use. My line manager suggested I get in touch with Dr. Bridget Harvey (www.bridgetharvey.co.uk) who is a tutor on the MA Designer Maker course and is also a researcher in Repair Making: Craft, Narratives, Activism. She has run similar workshop with the students on MA Designer Maker.

I reached out to Bridget with my initial workshop plan and asked if she has any comments of feedback. In the document below my plan is in black text and comments from Bridget in red.

Bridget’s comments were really helpful. I thought asking the students to create a narrative around the objects to help make us think about the lifecycle of the material from raw product to end of life. I think this activity would have been too abstract and required too much time in the 2 hour workshop. I restructured the Observe and Categorise sections of the workshop. See the revised workshop plan below.

Time	Activity
Introduction15 mins	Intro  What are we doing Permission forms
Discussion	Group discussion about methods of recoding/evidencing
Collect 10 mins	Ask students to go around the studio and bring back a material. If we have any repeats – go and select again.  Are there any materials we think are missing from our selection of materials from the studio? Go and select missing materials.
Categorising10 mins	1_ Most to Least Set up long sheet of paper on the table (leftover from Unit 1)   Ask students to arrange the objects on the table from;  Past – Most to least processed (from raw material to finished product)
Categorising PAST 30 mins	In groups (2-3) Select 2 materials  Draw diagram / storyboard for this material from its raw material to finished material/product, listing out the steps involved.   Groups to present their findings. As a large group we will rearrange the object on the table based on our research.  We re-categorised the materials based on the research about the making of the material
Categorising PRESENT 10 mins	Draw diagram / storyboard about how you imagine this material came to be in our studio.   Who bought it? Where did they buy it? Why did they buy it? What did they use it for?
Categorising FUTURE 10 mins	Draw diagram / storyboard about what you imagine might happen to this material in the future.  Who will use it? What will they use it for? How long will it be used for? What will happen after that? And after that?
Observe  20 mins	Review the materials with their timelines.   Where can we intervene in this system?  How can we intervene?   Are some materials more important to prioritise? How can we decide? Carbon footprint factor?
Reflection 10 mins	What did you learn / value from the experience?   How can we record this session? How do we pass this knowledge onto our community?  Can we make a small exhibition in the studio of our materials with their past/second lives?  I would like students to reflect on each workshop session, how would they like to do this? Postcards? Forms? Drawings?