Publications, articles, papers
- Article
Commoning through institutional aesthetics: Crafting frames, boundaries and reflections in practice
Authors: Elena Raviola, Marta Gasparin, Helena Hansson
Abstract
In this essay, we explore Cooper’s theorizing of institutional aesthetics and technology to analyse a field study of a commoning process at a recreational area at Linnarhult near Gothenburg, Sweden. The paper focuses on a series of craft interventions that used the willow plant to make the area a common space. Using Cooper’s theories, we analyse the community craft activities conducted at Linnarhult as an aesthetic process of making a common space by crafting frames, boundaries and reflections on site. We thus conclude by highlighting the process of commoning through institutional aesthetics, and we reflect on our attempt to use Cooper’s theoretical ideas in analysing a concrete case. His emphasis and exemplary writing on the aesthetics of institutions has inspired us greatly, but our exploration has come with challenges and probably a deal of betrayal.
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- Promo
Promotion in magazine Bornholm Craft Weeks 2024
Bornholm Craft Weeks is an annual celebration of exceptional craftsmanship. Enjoy 10 days filled with unique experiences, including workshops, exhibitions, tours, and special events. This year, the European Ceramic Context will present two major exhibitions, and the Bornholm Championships in Wheel Throwing will return. The dedicated magazine has been published and distributed. HEPHAESTUS project is features in the magazine, page 26.
- Interview
A laboratory for future green solutions
In Journal for Crafts & Design Formkraft
Formkraft is a curated journal dedicated to contemporary crafts and design. Guided by an academic editorial board, themes and cases are carefully selected. Each month, Formkraft publishes 3-4 articles, including research papers, interviews, portraits, and reviews. Our mission is to foster critical discussion about crafts and design through socially relevant and professional topics, creating a nuanced narrative with contributions from a diverse range of authors. Formkraft illuminates, investigates, and contextualizes contemporary crafts and design.
HEPHAESTUS project representatives gave an interview that was published in the journal.
- Research article – Open Access
Reorganizing public value for city life in the Anthropocene
Authors: Gasparin, M., Quinn, M., Williams, M., Saren, M., Lilley, S., Green, W., Brown, S. D., & Zalasiewicz, J.
Public value and city governance are fundamental notions in contemporary settings, but, currently conceived, they are not fit for the challenges presented by the proposed new epoch of geological time—the Anthropocene. Walking through the locked-down streets or calle of Venice, we face the sudden emptiness that starkly reveals the impact of human activity on the city and its waterways. Reflecting on the walk, our starting point is to problematize how a city organizes and manages public value and what actually constitutes public value. In this, we develop a new definition, “New Public Value for the Anthropocene Epoch” (NPVA), which expands the notion of public value through the questions: “who” is it valuable to do things for, beyond humans and economic actors, building on a relational epistemology to incorporate the planet and its biosphere; and “what” is valuable to do, in order to ensure the inclusion of social, environmental, and cultural values alongside economic values. We conclude by arguing that NPVA is organized across scales in a manner that embeds global attentiveness toward local ecosystems solutions to drive the global response to the environmental crisis we all face.
- Article
With Latour in our hands: discovering the politics of organizing and the aesthetic matter of things
Elena Raviola (Business and Design Lab, Academy of Art and Design, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden), Marta Gasparin (Department of Business Humanities Law, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark).
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to pay tribute to the work of Bruno Latour and its relevance for organization scholars particularly, by relentlessly going beyond the reified category of “organization.” We rely in particular on our own experiences of conducting fieldwork with Latour in our hands and expose our journeys, sometimes feeling naked, embarrassed and naive. By following traces of actions, paying attention to things and appreciating plurality, with Latour we have discovered the politics of organizing and the aesthetic matter of things.
Design/methodology/approach
We use our own methodological experience to describe how Latour’s work has helped us concretely. We structure our methodological reasoning around three excursions in the field, corresponding to our different fieldwork journeys. For each excursion, we rely on descriptions and reflect on how we have traced actions, paid attention to things and appreciated plurality, as set out in the introduction.
Findings
We render through excursions our Latour moments, that is, critical moments in fieldwork, where we get stuck and embarrassed and where Latour’s texts with simple questions help us move. Against the critique of ANT as being apolitical and unable to account for the body, we explain how we have precisely, through our ANT investigations, intersected between politics, aesthetics and organizing through three main ways of displacing us in the field: leaving a priori categories and questioning what we see; placing our view somewhere and moving it in an oligopticon-like way; and “thick thinging.”
Originality/value
The paper is a tribute to Latour’s work and wants to contribute to emphasizing his relevance for understanding not only organization in general but also the politics and aesthetics of organizing. We reassemble our fieldwork journeys and, despite their being personal to us, we believe that our learnings are recognizable and recognized by other scholars. We conclude with a research suggestion relevant to organization scholars.
- Media Review
Crafting Traditions and Speculative Imaginaries
Authors: M. Gasparin, E. Raviola, D. Hjorth
This review is about three exhibitions co-created within the HEPHAESTUS project:
- Atmospheres of Craft (Palazzo Sturm, Bassano del Grappa, Italy, 27/05-30/06/2023), created and curated by D20 (Sergio Marchesini and Raffaella Rivi)
- Semblance (Design Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2/05-10/05/2024), curated by: Alice Kettle, Jokum Lind Jensen and Rob Curran
- Brave New World (an itinerant exhibition presented in Dals Långed, Bornholm, and Venice since May 2024, and will be presented in Bologna in 2025), created and curated by D20