Discussion of interventions and user participation

The interventions described in section 5.4 constituted part of the strategy of triangulation, drawing on action research methods for external validation of the qualitative aspects of the issues of sustainability in relation to glass craft and design.

The interventions aimed at generating a dialogue with an audience through the use of glass as intermediary objects while at the same time creating aesthetic statements using a recycled material in the public realm.

Glass craft and design professionals have problem-solving competences developed through practical, artistic, scientific, emotional and philosophical engagement with the material. We know how to make beautiful things from it, that at the same time serve a purpose. We are also autonomous, self-indulgent and capable of generating non-sensical outcomes. We find constructive as well as disruptive ways of engaging ourselves creatively and incorporate the results of our engagement into invention of new realities.

Today, sustainable development, is generally considered a constructive approach to the major problems generated by human activities. Every business needs, at least apparently, to care about sustainable development. In most developed countries legislation demands reporting of sustainability and CSR strategies by large enterprises and while most glass design and craft enterprises are small or micro sized they still may offer knowledge and insight that could potentially contribute to the development.

But if Fry right, it is not sufficient to act according to the mainstream legislative guidelines if we are to substantially change the course we are following at present. He

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calls for re-directive practice (Fry, 2009, pp.

53-70). Mau on the other hand claims that humanity already possess the capacity to design the massive changes needed to gain peace and prosperity within a sustainable future for all of humanity (Mau & et. al., 2004).

Mazanti claims that craft is taking a position between the object of material culture and autonomous art (2006), and Walker argues that design has the capacity for “a setting aside of the intellectual self” (2006, pp. 186-187). The interventions explored how glass craft and design has the potential to bridge the gap between the two positions in the discourse of sustainability through its engagement with material culture as well as through its autonomous character. While proposing that autonomous disruptive action is to artistic research what critical analytic thinking is to scientific research, the idea of these interventions was to bring together the disruptive action and the problem solving capacity, sense and non-sense, to cope with the dilemmas that exist between the two positions in sustainable discourse, much along the ideas presented in Walker and Mazanti’s accounts.

If and how aesthetic innovation may be derived from introduction of sustainable principles in the creative processes of glass craft and design?

The interventions followed the ideas of action research, about “a real-life dialogical practice within real-life socio-political contexts …[where]… all practitioners may and should engage in knowledge creation

with potential for personal, social and institutional hope for transformation”

(McNiff, 2013, p. 188).

During the two interventions, acting out reflection as well as reflecting on the actions were done together with other practitioners, participants and audiences. The formats of disruptive action in public places, installation design and user-participatory design are already well established and the ideas of private people claiming the right to use the streets as a stage for artistic purposes are also not new.

Nevertheless, the format of the

“ULTRACONTEMPORARY” (see sub-section 5.4.1) provided an opportunity to introduce objects, made from a recycled material and spelling out the word “love”, into the public realm and learn how it would be received in a socio-political context of an artist intervention in a public place. A person asked if I realized that my work was referencing craft, and stated that the work was cute, pretty and decorative, pinpointing an issue that stems from a traditional conception of craft as an inferior art form.

The group was acting out a critical attitude toward political currents in society and toward the established art-scene, but if the critique was formulated as a statement of hope in a material that referenced craft, it was not really taken seriously. It did not occur to the person that my piece could be critical of the elitist and non-inclusive way of intervening that we were practicing as a group of well-educated and privileged

Recycle. About Sustainability in Glass Craft & Design ● Maria Sparre-Petersen ● KADK 2016

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strangers in the streets.

The idea of sustainable development includes economic, environmental and social issues. In this intervention, the social aspect was stressed in terms of applied ethics. The event showed that the exclusive hierarchical thinking that is justifying inequality - one of the major causes of non-sustainability in the current economical paradigm (Mau & et. al., 2004), is so deeply rooted into all realms of our society that even the realm of art that supposedly holds a disruptive autonomous potential for change is caught up in stereotypical preconceptions of the critical potential of craft. The piece was cute, sweet and decorative, but the context it was presented in could lead to another interpretation, i.e. that criticism has many voices.

The fact that it was removed from the site can also be interpreted in multiple ways. It could have been removed by the authorities, in which case the interpretation of the piece would be that it was vandalism, which could be interpreted as an aesthetic position: the aesthetic of destruction. It could have been removed by someone who wanted to keep it, in which case it was interpreted as an aesthetic value. Or it could have been removed by someone who wanted to destroy it, in which case it was interpreted as a target for vandalism, or an aesthetic position that evoked the aesthetic of destruction. All of these options would assign a different aesthetic meaning to the installed artifacts.

In any case, someone took the time and

effort to dig it out of the asphalt, so the artifacts have had an aesthetic impact on someone in addition to the participants and the audience of the intervention.

In “The Pennylaw Meets the Walk of Fame”

(see sub-section 5.4.2) 22 glass “cobble stones” were decorated by museum visitors who had signed up to participate. The stones were subsequently inserted into the sidewalk outside the museum. In this intervention the reactions were quite inclusive. The museum staff participated, the media were invited and passers-by would stop and ask questions.

This way the artifacts became a point of connection in a real-life situation where the participants worked together on a common goal and in respect of the individual abilities and ideas.

In terms of aesthetic innovation understood as expansion of aesthetic spaces of opportunity, the conceptual aspect of this intervention accentuate and encourage artistic activity. The aesthetic spaces of opportunity are expanded every time someone develops a personal aesthetic position. This is not done by decorating one stone, but the ideas of exercising one’s creativity and of claiming the streets are steps toward aesthetic innovation that include people beyond the creative class. By placing the “cobblestones” in the pavement the participants embraced the permanence of the work and acknowledged their own collaborative efforts, which is an act of aesthetic empowerment and innovation.

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How glass craft and design may contribute to sustainable development?

Glass craft and design is part of most people’s everyday life, and according to Attfield, things we surround ourselves with are laden with meaning that all together makes up our reality (2000). During the

installation of the

“ULTRACONTEMPORARY” I spoke to a number of people passing by. People were generally curious, and wanted to know what we were doing and why we were doing it.

Some would even stay and join the presentations of the works. In that sense the idea of using the streets as a stage for a dialogue was successful, and generating meaning in the dialogue with people that might not have felt inclined to visit a museum or a gallery, but were intrigued by the unexpected experience.

In Fry’s words the things we make also have the capacity to go on making (2009). He proposes a strategy of taking action from outside of the established systems for sustainable development as mentioned in sub-section 3.3.2. This strategy was exercised in “The Pennylaw Meets the Walk of Fame” where objects were made partly by the participants in the workshop and partly by me – the designer/crafts professional.

They were set into the sidewalk as a miniature disruptive action placing agents of disruption in the public realm. A small step, perhaps, towards coming together as a community, and taking over the world with sustainable carriers of meaning that will go on making more sustainable communities and societies.

In summary, glass craft and design can contribute to environmental aspects of sustainable development by using recycled materials. It can also contribute to socio-political aspects of sustainable development, by occupying a creative space of opportunity between material culture and autonomous art that holds capacity to critically reflect on and through both.

Recycle. About Sustainability in Glass Craft & Design ● Maria Sparre-Petersen ● KADK 2016

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