Talk
Soft Connection Lab is a four-year research project embedded in the University of KASK in Ghent, Belgium. Within the Lab they explore the possibilities to restore the emotional connection with each other and our material surroundings. In a world increasingly dominated by digitalization – which disconnects designing from making - they believe in the value of hands-on experiences, fostering deeper connections with the material, the object, and the people they are interacting with.
During the talk, they are happy to introduce their newly developed methodology that aims to stimulate a conjunctive design attitude. They will share their experiences and interesting footage on the ongoing research. Inspired by forgotten artisanal textile techniques and the social cohesiveness of maypole dancers, the team has researched transversal creative making methods which add an intangible emotional value to the created objects. Besides scaling up and slowing down to enhance insight, they’ve developed a set of four Soft Tools. These four Soft Tools function as their new design vocabulary and contain various obsolete braiding techniques. With these four tools SCL aspires to restore the emotional bonds between makers, consumers, and objects.
Parallel to the talk, they’ll launch our design challenge Healing through braiding. They invite enthusiast makers to use our Soft Tools to heal an object, transforming it and imbuing it with new significance. By exploring repair and restoration, emotional links can be forged between individuals, their material world and society.
Soft Connection Lab is a research project embedded within KASK – School of Arts HoGent in Ghent, Belgium. A collective of five researchers and designers is exploring whether ingenious textile techniques can be transformed into co-creative methodologies and healing artifacts.
In our Western industrialized society, the processes of designing and making are often disconnected. Soft Connection Lab aims to develop methods to reunite these processes through a conjunctive design methodology. Drawing inspiration from ingenious braiding techniques and the social connections exemplified by maypole dancers, the team investigates how this collective energy can enhance the emotional relationship between makers, consumers, and objects. They aspire to determine if this process can serve as a catalyst for sustainability.