Multicomponent Title: Designing and Making with Ocean Plastic: Towards New Experiential Processes and Material Outcomes
Type: Multicomponent with contextual information
- Submitting institution
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Edinburgh Napier University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- IL_1
- Type
- Q - Digital or visual media
- Publisher
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- Month
- April
- Year
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This research centres around new ways of using and engaging with ‘ocean plastic’. It is a development and significant branch of the authors ongoing research into sustainable, low energy making processes with uncommon materials and their relationship with the places they were found and then subsequently made. Through exploring the use of ocean plastic, the author demonstrates the potential for reuse and as a way to engage publics in the issues surrounding it.
Research outputs from this project include a collection of made objects and textual analysis of the various site-specific events, workshops, processes and material outcomes. This practice-led research combines material innovation with designed artefacts and prototypical processes using ocean plastic. In addition to this, through various workshops and public engagement events involving participative making, ways in which publics engage with issues of sustainability are notably enhanced.
There was an initial inquiry into beach combing in the Outer Hebrides. This instigated a novel inquiry into the feasibility of off-grid, hand-guided injection moulding using ocean plastic to craft meaningful objects in situ, using improvised processes. This led to testing the material’s capabilities with digitally making processes and laboratory testing, converting ocean plastic debris into 3D printing filament. This acted as a means of highlighting the author’s interest in the broad ranging potential of ocean plastic as a raw material and the ability to inform through the consequences of innovative making.
This research was funded by Carnegie (10K) and involves several invited, international workshops and public lectures. In 2018, as part of a collaborative team involving a case study with Wee Replicators kids digital making clubs, the author was part of an award winning paper publication in Materials Today Communication, taking a lead on ocean plastic within the text. The author was invited to publish his research in The Conversation (2019).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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