Making Futures
2026 Conference App
Full Schedule
Thursday 29 October
Session 01: Responsive & Agentic Materiality
Plymouth Arts Cinema • 4 Papers
La ternura de lo vivo [Tenderness of life]: Towards a Phenomenological Approach to Non-Human Creativity in Living Materials
Prof. Antía Iglesias
Universidad Europea de Madrid, Universidad de Vigo, Spain
Living Textiles: a framework for research at the intersection textiles, biology and biotechnology
Prof Jane Scott
School of Architecture Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University
Biomimicry as Design Research: Material Intelligence in Origami-Inspired Soft Robotics
Assoc. Prof Miranda Smitheram and Assoc. Prof Alice Jarry
Department of Design and Computational Arts, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Towards Material Empathy: Practice-Led Encounters with Material Agency Through The Material Empathy Library
Senior Lecturer Poppy Braddy
Co-Course Leader, BA (Hons) Textile Design, Birmingham City University
Session 02: Education as Infrastructure for Circularity
Plymouth Arts Cinema • 4 Papers
Divestment Through Deconstruction: Un-making Shoes as a Pathway to a Circular Mindset
Lecturer Dr Alexandra Sherlock, Lecturer Pennie Jagiello & Prof Dr Ellen Sampson
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University / University of the West of England
Making That Stays: Care and Reciprocity in Distributed Production, from a Balinese Village to a Venezuelan Earthquake
Tomás Diez
Meaningful Design Group / Fab City Foundation, Bali, Indonesia
Metaphorical Architecture: A Diagnostic Tool for Circular Fashion Education
Georgiana Dan
National College of Art and Design, Ireland
Financing Circular Futures: Educating Financial Professionals for Regenerative Material Innovation and Ecological Care
Prof Chinwe R. Okoyeuzu
Department of Banking and Finance, University of Nigeria
Session 03: Designed Reciprocity
Fashion Design Studio • 4 Papers
Materialising resistance: the quiet activism of vernacular fibres, textiles and clothin
Dr Kirsten Scott, Senior Lecturer Emma D’Arcey and Senior MA Fashion Tutor Clare Lopeman
Instituto Maragoni
Ethical Craft-Based Design Interventions: A Framework for Collaborative Engagement with the Sujani Embroidery Community of Bihar
Asst. Prof Dr Babita Bhandari
National Institute of Fashion Technology, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India
The Saffron Road Initiative: Crafting a Cultural Corridor through Designed Reciprocity and Heritage Futures
Zara Hasti Abbasi
International Institute for the Development of Art and Creative Industries, Iran
Natural Dyeing as an Ethical Relationship to Land: Settler Positionality and Non-Extractive Practice in Aotearoa New Zealand
Lecturer Amy Sio-Atoa
Toi Rauwhārangi, College of Creative Arts, Massey University, Aotearoa New Zealand
Session 04: Ecologies of Material Knowledge
Plymouth Arts Cinema • 3 Papers
Recursivity and Creative Waiting: Living Temporalities for Knowing the World
Prof Sebastían Rodríguez and Asst. Prof Nicole Cristi
Diseño UC y Diseño Universidad Diego Portales / Diseño UC e Instituto para el Desarrollo Sustentable UC, Chile
Making Beyond Sight: Textile Craft and the Conditions of Marine Ecological Restoration
Malu Luecking, Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete, Assoc. Prof Valentina Rognoli
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Grounded Functioning and Hybrid Structures of Ecological Care
Fitnat Cimşit Koş and Seben Aşkin Kütükçü
Responsive Ground Research Lab Gebze Technical University, Faculty of Architecture, Turkey
Session 05: Crafted Care, Repair and Restoration
Fab Lab South West • 4 Papers
Cobot Couture: Designing Digital Repair Practices for Clothing Longevity
Senior Research Fellow Dr Laura Morgan, Florence Robinson and James Knight
Centre for Print Research, University of the West of England, Bristol
Ratify, Not Restore: A Found Sheet as a Record of Two Bodies
Chloe Van der Kindere
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Tending to: Material and social practices of care and repair
Dr. Bridget Harvey
Camberwell College of Arts
Designing for Repair Visibility: Reframing Product Repair as a Desirable Circular Economy Strategy Rooted in their Cultural and Social Values
Prof Ricardo J. Hernandez
Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Columbia
Session 06: Socio-material Ontologies
Fashion Design Studio • 4 Papers
The Cassette Tape as Caring Material
Rachel Gippetti
University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK
Dry Adhesion and Material Intelligence for Ecological Accessibility: Designing Temporary Tactile Flooring for Blind People
Chloe Van der Kindere
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Kitchens as Sites of both Disappearance and Existential Hope. An invitation to an inquiring discussion with specific lenses froma combined Object- Oriented Ontological and Biographical perspective
Dr Stefan Alexa
Nottingham, UK
Digital Decoding: Human-material entanglement across craft and digital practice
Julia Wolf and Emma Wood
Universität der Künste Berlin, Germany
Metaphorical Architecture: A workshop in Circular Fashion
Fashion Design Studio • Speaker: Georgiana Dan and Laoise Carey
Re.punk Salon
Interior Design Studio • Speaker: Sabine Seymour
Weaving Bioyarn
Biomaterials Lab • Speaker: Sanika Pradhan
Circular Craft Economy in the SW
Plymouth Arts Cinema • Speaker: Yasmin Jones-Henry & Katie Treggiden
This Is Not a Shoe: An Exhibition of Material Ongoingness
Fashion Design Studio • Speaker: Dr Alexandra Sherlock, Pennie Jagiello and Dr. Ellen Sampson
Exhibition Green Book: Commissions, Events, Festivals, Production
Interior Design Studio • Speaker: Mala Yamey
Making A Winogradsky Column
Biomaterials Lab • Speaker: Sanika Pradhan
Conference Welcome Reception
The Box
Friday 30 October
Session 07: Material Framework for Ecological Care
Plymouth Arts Cinema • 5 Papers
Harvested Assemblies: Intersecting mycelium growth protocols with woodwork and basketry techniques to evolve a novel bio-integrated material practice and challenge established heritage craft typologies
Prof Carole Collet
Living Systems Lab, Central Saint Martins UAL
Eco-Cultural Design: Designing Relationships Through Material Intelligence
Sami Kimberley
Interdisciplinary Designer and Researcher, Studio Pangu
Listening to Pigment: Storied Matter and Co- Authorship in the Making of Paint
Assoc. Prof Miranda Smitheram and Assoc. Prof Alice Jarry
Department of Design and Computational Arts, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
D(eco)lonisation : co-authorship with nature in the era of the biorevolution
Aurlie Fontan
Founder and Director, Osmose Studio
Learning through Materiality: Architectural Workshops as Open Laboratories of Material Intelligence
Davor Ereš
Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Session 08: Building with More than Human Bio-based Materials
Plymouth Arts Cinema • 5 Papers
Terrestrial Flows: Research into bio-based magneto-active kirigami and tessellated surfaces
Dr. Alice Jarry
Concordia University Research Chair in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality, Concordia University, Canada,
The Ecology of Outliers: an art-ecology approach to functional rarity and the speculative construction of future ecosystems through biobased materials research
Prof Antía Iglesias and Marion Boisseaux
Universidad Europea de Madrid, Universidad de Vigo, Spain / Centre d’ Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, CNRS, Montpellier, France
Beyond the Human: Rethinking Architecture Through Biomaterials and Multispecies Ecology
Selenia Marinelli
Independent Researcher and Material Activist
Reframing Circularity in Bio-based Leather Alternatives: From Material Innovation to Systemic Circularity
Wenjie Chen
London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London
Expanding Design Models for Enhanced Utilisation of Urban Woodland Resources
Prof George Fereday and Asst. Prof Dr. Xan Browne
London Metropolitan University / Royal Danish Academy
Session 10: Waste Upcycling for Circular Design
Fab Lab South West • 3 Papers
Geographies of Re‑Making: Upcycling as Research Method, Waste as Collaborator in Circular Material Knowledge and Reuse Ecosystems
Dr. Katherine Soucie
University of the Arts London
Developing a Waste-Stream Classification System for Educational Material Libraries
Narmin Gasimova, Valentina Rognoli, Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete
Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Repairing Architectural Memory through Material Reincorporation: A Phenomenological Perspective on Identity and Belonging
Mayra Alencar, Lígia Lopes, Lino Maia, Nuno Faria
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto / Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto Domingos da Silva Teixeira, Portugal
Session 11: Co-Creative Materialism
Fab Lab South West • 4 Papers
The Foundations of Geo-asemic Materialism
Dr Jonathan Boyd and Dr Patricia Domingues
Royal College of Art
Neo-gemstones: Crystal Growth as Co-creative Craft Practice and Material Ecology
Dr Sofie Boons
University of the West of England
The Poetic Agency of Metal: Responsive Materiality and Meaning- Making in Contemporary Metal Craft
Yitong Zhang
Glasgow School of Art
Designing for Repair Visibility: Reframing Product Repair as a Desirable Circular Economy Strategy Rooted in their Cultural and SListening to Mycelium: Acoustic Stimulation as More-than-Human Co-Creation in Responsive Material Design
Veronika Žvirblė and Ignas Juzokas
Vilnius Academy of Arts, Lithuania and Vilniaus kolegija, Lithuania
Session 12: Social and Public Mattering
Fashion Design Studio • 4 Papers
Care work is Grief work
Suzanna James
Arts University Plymouth
Working Regeneratively: A Holistic Approach to Environmental Responsibility and Social Impact in Public
Mala Yamey
Up Projects
Fragile Threads: Navigating the environmental stewardship of temperate rainforests through heritage craft.
Charlotte Warren
Arts University Plymouth
Baldinhos and Living Relations: Composting as Ecological Reparation in the Ecomuseu Campos de São José in Brazil
Marina Herriges
University of Glasgow
The Affective Artifact
The Box • Speaker: Simon Werrett & Terah Walkup
Living Materials Lab
Plymouth Arts Cinema • Speaker: Professor Carole Collet, Sanika Pradhan & Aurelie Fontan
Co-created Artifacts: Project SUBMERSE:D & Project Neo-Gemstones
Fab Lab South West • Speaker: Nigel Guérin-Garnett, Victoria Geaney, Sara Robertson and Sarah Taylor / Dr Sofie Boons
Earthbound Craft: Multispecies Letters for Future Flourishing
Fashion Design Studio • Speaker: Sabina Sallis
Fab Lab European Network
Interior Design Studio • Speaker: Lucas Maragoni
Education as Infrastructure: Thought Leaders
Plymouth Arts Cinema • Speaker: Yasmin Jones Henry, Natalie Melton, Amanda Johnston, Cassie Quinn, Prof Dilys Williams and David Kirkland
Regen Ink: Natural Dye Screen Printing Workshop
Natural Dye Lab • Speaker: Meredith Woods
Craft Correspondences: Reshaping Craft Education
Interior Design Studio • Speaker: r Caroline Madden, Dr Kim Bagley, Senior Lecturer Gayle Matthias
Saturday 31 October
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