Blueprints are a series of fabric collages and also a method for translating physical properties of objects into digital materialities of media compilations. It is a way of thinking about how the physical and digital materialities of the things around us could inform each other or aid in curation of them respectively. The idea has developed at a point in the broader project when we wanted to create some exemplar pieces of how media could support ongoingness pre-recruitment of participants to the project. In other words we made a series of pieces drawing from our own lives and relationships that we could use when meeting people who may want to take part in the research so that they could see some concrete examples of the kinds of things that we could make with and for them. The premise of the research and the notion of ongoingness are abstract and we wanted to create some tangible designs that we could talk through and give potential participants things to think around and with. We offer Blueprints up as an account of firstly an idea that seeks to find gentle ‘ways in’ to working with sensitive media, secondly a method for curating media through physical, craft based means, thirdly a method of reappropriating existing media in order to create something new from a finite archive and fourthly a series of personal reflections on the outcomes and potential implications of these in relation to ongoingness.
Thinking Through Making : Our creative process
The idea stemmed from some small textile objects that Jayne made from scraps of fabric cut from old objects of her mum’s(clothing, tablecloths, napkins) that she owned since her mum’s death several years ago and new fabrics that she had brought back from travelling, or that she was making clothes from. Initially the objects were made as an attempt to bring things belonging to both people together in new ways to achieve something new, something current - a dialogue rather than a reminiscence object. The old fabrics were things that were not sentimental, many were used, stained tablecloths that held little emotional meaning, but that nonetheless were definitely from one person. These were objects that weren’t the first author’s taste, weren’t particularly useful for other people as they were perhaps too old and worn to give away, but which she didn’t want to simply throw away either. So another strategy developed which was to use these objects as raw materials for the making of new things and this was the starting point for making the Blueprints pieces.
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