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Hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research

Over the last two decades, craft practice has played a considerable role in practice-led design research, especially as the subject and the vehicle for theoretical inquiry. This article aims to reveal how craft as a way of thinking through material can be incorporated into practice-led design resear...

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Main Author: Nithikul Nimkulrat
Format: Default Article
Published: 2012
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2134/11352
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author Nithikul Nimkulrat
author_facet Nithikul Nimkulrat
author_sort Nithikul Nimkulrat (699108)
collection Figshare
description Over the last two decades, craft practice has played a considerable role in practice-led design research, especially as the subject and the vehicle for theoretical inquiry. This article aims to reveal how craft as a way of thinking through material can be incorporated into practice-led design research. The author’s completed dissertation exploring the expressivity of materials in textiles is used to exemplify how craft can drive a practice-led research process and how research can enhance craft practice. The dissertation exemplifies how the author employed her own craft practice as the main method for design research. The method was utilized in relation to Merleau-Ponty’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology and the method of questioning viewers during two exhibitions featuring artifacts resulting from the author’s craft practice. Positioning craft practice in a research context can facilitate the reflection and articulation of knowledge generated from within the researcher-practitioner’s artistic experience, so that the knowledge becomes explicit as a written text or as a means of visual representation. Research can not only transform ways of designing or making artifacts, but also theoretically inform practice so that the practice can develop the practitioner’s aesthetic intelligence, the results of which are craft objects that can be understood more easily by viewers.
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institution Loughborough University
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spelling rr-article-93357982012-01-01T00:00:00Z Hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research Nithikul Nimkulrat (699108) Other creative arts and writing not elsewhere classified untagged Studies in the Creative Arts and Writing not elsewhere classified Over the last two decades, craft practice has played a considerable role in practice-led design research, especially as the subject and the vehicle for theoretical inquiry. This article aims to reveal how craft as a way of thinking through material can be incorporated into practice-led design research. The author’s completed dissertation exploring the expressivity of materials in textiles is used to exemplify how craft can drive a practice-led research process and how research can enhance craft practice. The dissertation exemplifies how the author employed her own craft practice as the main method for design research. The method was utilized in relation to Merleau-Ponty’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology and the method of questioning viewers during two exhibitions featuring artifacts resulting from the author’s craft practice. Positioning craft practice in a research context can facilitate the reflection and articulation of knowledge generated from within the researcher-practitioner’s artistic experience, so that the knowledge becomes explicit as a written text or as a means of visual representation. Research can not only transform ways of designing or making artifacts, but also theoretically inform practice so that the practice can develop the practitioner’s aesthetic intelligence, the results of which are craft objects that can be understood more easily by viewers. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Text Journal contribution 2134/11352 https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Hands-on_intellect_integrating_craft_practice_into_design_research/9335798 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
spellingShingle Other creative arts and writing not elsewhere classified
untagged
Studies in the Creative Arts and Writing not elsewhere classified
Nithikul Nimkulrat
Hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research
title Hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research
title_full Hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research
title_fullStr Hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research
title_full_unstemmed Hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research
title_short Hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research
title_sort hands-on intellect: integrating craft practice into design research
topic Other creative arts and writing not elsewhere classified
untagged
Studies in the Creative Arts and Writing not elsewhere classified
url https://hdl.handle.net/2134/11352