About the Sustainable Practices in the Anthropocene Research Lab
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The Sustainable Practices in the Anthropocene Lab focuses on research, development, and engagement concerning manual making and dwelling in the contemporary world, engaging with the intertwined issues of climate change, resource exhaustion, global pollution, and energy consumption.
Craftsman making a child’s version of the Orkney Chair, visual record from The Orkney Ocean Chair - Recycling Marine Plastics with Local Communities IAA Fellowship. Photo: Katharina Vones
The Lab’s researchers all have an interest in historical techniques and technologies, traditional crafts, specialist communities of practice, and manually focused applied arts, as well as the ongoing relevance of these to contemporary societies around the globe. They are also interested in interactions between these making processes and the materials and processes they require and employ.
Past and current projects include examinations of the extraction, harvesting, processing, and analysis of specific raw materials used by craft and applied arts practitioners and the environmental, ecological, and social consequences of these activities in the past and present. Alongside pure research, Sustainable Practices in the Anthropocene team members undertake interventions aimed at changing attitudes and behaviours, with the intention of encouraging or facilitating more responsible manual making practices and promoting an understanding of the issues that underpin the current global polycrisis.
