VIVA - GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART // MASTERS OF RESEARCH - DESIGN INNOVATION
A viva voce is a long-established part of the examination process for a research degree. The main focus of the assessment is on the written thesis/dissertation (and other outputs, for a Practice as Research students). However, the viva gives you the opportunity to defend your thesis and is used to inform the examiners’ final assessment decision.
Examiners // Dr Janet McDonnell: Professor of Design Studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts, London, UK & Dr Brian Dixon: Head of Belfast School of Art
AIM // The intention of this practice based research is to catalyze a critical turn in the sustainable fashion design field through the proposal of an inventive method for dealing with textile waste.
This proposal is realized through critical making and this study puts forward critical making as a method that can contribute to the mobilization of systems change within the fashion industry.
WHY? // Fashion is under scrutiny for its wastefulness – the current fashion system perpetuates continuous consumption driven by speed, change, planned obsolescence, artificial newness and aesthetic trends
The fashion industry is very slow to adopt more sustainable practices. barriers towards implementation for change exist with limited practical, viable and production-minded scalable examples of ways to shift forward within academic research as well as industry.
As design and consumption are inter-related – design can proactively influence and begin to realize this change.
HOW? // Holistically connecting the designer back towards the processes of manufacturing can open up a much-needed critical dialogue between designing and making where generative and constructive design-led insights can begin to unpack the complexities of fashion’s sustainability issues.
MAKING SPACE TAKING TIME // THE STUDIO
The process in which the study is undertaken is through the primacy of the studio process claiming that critical making is a constructive and generative process where visual and embodied links can be made that might otherwise be overlooked or unrealized through language-based approaches.
An investigation of PRACTICE AS RESEARCH is highlighted through an exploratory case study; studio practice, drawings, assemblage and textile studies are used as tools that aid to synthesize, analyze and further develop new ways of thinking about the design making process.
CRITICAL MAKING acts as a means to connect our technologies with our lived experiences offering up social and conceptual critique of the assumptive making processes that we employ.
Matt Malpass (2017) Critical Design in Context
Thinking in a Medium gives structure and physicality to the work in the studio,
Thinking in a Language frames the practice through reflective dialogue and
Thinking in a Context through embodied ways of making situates the practice to become research.
Graeme Sullivan (2009) Art Practice as Research
WHAT? // 1 + 1 = A Propositional Pattern Cutting System
1 + 1 is a zero-waste, negative-waste and additive pattern cutting and clothing design system that scales a single block shape into a variety of silhouettes by repeating and assembling that block shape to create the complete garment. The system can be used with regular lengths of new cloth, end rolls of fabric and textile waste materials.
Leading the design enquiry with a holistic view puts the waste up front and centre.
This way of designing encourages the designer to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of the whole process pulling production back into the initial stages of design development.
The designer can be instrumental in determining how waste materials are used in the creation of the design through pattern cutting.
By creating a pattern that works within the constraints of waste material, the designer not only restricts the amount of resources used but also shapes the formation of the silhouette and the resulting outcome.
This process of making and un-making establishes a circular ethos that embodies an approach that places an emphasis on the criticality of message within its aesthetics and incorporates re-formation through a multiplicity of design in its function.
Opening up the 1 + 1 Pattern Cutting System beyond the individual studio practice and extending its processes into a master class framework, a workshop format or through open source access would further promote a deeper engagement to reveal significant insights and critical feedback.
Such collective working sessions would setup a platform to increase the body of knowledge around the 1 + 1 system’s viability, transferability and scalability extending the research within the zero and negative-waste design and sustainable design fields.
The 1 + 1 not only offers an alternative technology for sustainable design but it also explores the process that it took to get there. it is through the critical making process where a multiplicity of re-directive and alternative approaches can be put forward.
I // MRES > 1 + 1 AS A DESIGN RESEARCH OUTPUT
IT // SHARE THE DESIGN & PROTOTYPING PROCESS
WE // BUILD A COLLECTIVE SYSTEM
ITS // CONNECT THE SYSTEM TO A NETWORK