Polly
Palmer Senior Lecturer, Creative
Product Design, School of Creative Arts
It is fascinating how a new
direction can present itself not by tireless academic immersion but in the
manner of a rake inadvertently stepped on. My Level 4 Creative Product Design
group returned in March from a study visit to Berlin in a state of missionary
fervour about a museum experience. They described a curatorial guided tour of
the Museum der Dinge (Museum of Things) and waxed lyrical about both the
expertise of the guides and the telling narrative of the displays. They told me
I had to go and see for myself, and so I will. How could I not?
My current research explores
learning outside the lecture room and ways to engage our millennial students in
visual culture and analysis. I have explored extensively the characteristics of
Generation Z through diverse sources including cultural organisations,
government surveys, sociological research and marketing. Defining preferences
include hands-on activity over passive absorption of information and a
questioning attitude to prevailing cultural tropes.
However despite their fearsome
readiness for critical evaluation and their cynicism in the face of traditional
education strategies, the students enthuse readily when engaged through innovative
presentation. My research journey to explore learning outside the lecture room
has recently focused upon museum collections of artefacts and how they might
directly inform the design processes and contextual understanding of students
of 3D Design.
The impetus for this is the
result of several strands of interest and experience, including years of
working in secondary school teaching Art and Design and Design and Technology,
and then running design education workshops at the Design Museum and nationwide
in schools.
At the University of
Hertfordshire I lecture in Critical and Cultural Studies (C&CS) on the Creative Product Design programme, collecting
artefacts to use in lectures and seminars. My interest in this area of research
has come out of integrating site and museum visits into C&CS modules as
part of the student experience.
Far away in another part of the galaxy….
….I
was busy finding different ways of teaching contextual understanding and
product analysis to Level 5 Creative Product Design. The result was a
successful workshop during a C&CS session in February 2016; this involved the
year group above the aforementioned Level 4 group on the same course, and a
month before the Berlin trip. It was a handling session using a collection of
agricultural and woodworking tools from the Salaman Collection http://www.stalbansmuseums.org.uk/collection/social-history-collection/, a comprehensive archive in the keeping of the Museum of
St Albans (MOSTA). The workshop was facilitated for MOSTA by curators Cat
Newley and Sarah Keeling and organised at UH by myself and Julian Lindley,
Senior Lecturer in Creative Product Design and Level 5 tutor.
Cat and Sarah brought a
collection of agricultural tools for the students to handle and evaluate as
part of a studio project to design a strimmer. The
workshop aimed to provide historical and experiential context and detailed
functional, social, material and ergonomic analysis for linked C&CS and
studio projects.
The
workshop was well received by the students. An evaluation by the participants produced
some thoughtful observations which we have incorporated into the plan for the
next stage of the project. The students showed active interest and
enthusiasm in the session, and commented in a subsequent evaluation on, amongst
other things, the beauty and emotional appeal of crafted objects and the value
of handling the artefacts, assessing weight, balance and ergonomic success.
We aim to build on this
experience by planning a more integrated approach in a collaborative pilot project in Semester B 2016-17. This will aim to provide experience of historic artefacts
for Creative Product Design students to analyse and evaluate in relation to a combined
studio project and C&CS assignment. Students will be encouraged to
integrate their experience and understanding of heritage artefacts into their
design processes and analysis when designing new products. The
studio teaching staff is also keen to develop shared projects to elicit maximum
engagement and understanding from the students
MOSTA curators are
enthusiastic about a relationship with us and the collaboration could in
subsequent years, once the new museum is opened in its central location, draw
on elements such as local community involvement, with students curating and
displaying work that has come out of the research project, and mutual support
for heritage and design exhibitions and student and tutor research.
I wish to go beyond contextual
and design historical benefits to unpick elements of the design process and
integrate heritage product evaluation. This approach could benefit students’
willingness to take risks and experiment, their knowledge of materials and
manufacture, ergonomics, emotional design, user experience and sustainability;
all deeply embedded elements of current design processes.
The exploration of good
practice in an international context in Berlin and the development of a
fruitful and creative collaboration with a local museum, plus an analysis of past,
present and future use of the Design Museum’s extensive artefact collection will
provide a comprehensive analysis of the role of museum artefacts in the
teaching of 3D Design at undergraduate level.
The Level 4 group, who had a taste
of the power of displayed products to communicate multi-layered meaning through
a carefully nuanced narrative, will this year, as Level 5 students, experience
the questioning of artefacts and the application of their in-depth analysis to
design process and practice. They have inspired a new direction in my work and
they will be fully cognisant participants in the research in progress. I intend
to explore their responses to these experiences in the hope that they feel
empowered in their practice and engaged with broad and diverse aspects of culture.
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