Making, Breaking & Repair

Wednesday 09 November 2011 10:00am - 12:00pm

Anatomy Theatre & Museum, Strand Campus

6th Floor, King's Building

Making, breaking and repair are powerful metaphors for talking about lived experience and the natural world. We can deepen our understanding of these ways of thinking and speaking through a focus on material processes, both contemporary and historical.

Despite the recent turn to materiality in literary and historical studies there have been few attempts within these disciplines to engage with material practices - to learn to think with things as well as with language. This session will bring together different perspectives on material and materiality. A panel of speakers from a wide range of backgrounds will present their practices of making and repair, and their approaches to things that are broken, damaged or incomplete.

An open discussion and tea follow presentations from the following speakers:

• Matthew Read (West Dean College) - Historic Clock-Making Practices
• Jane ni Dhulchaointigh (Inventor of Sugru) - A Repair Revolution: The Story of Sugru
• Jennifer Rampling (University of Cambridge) - Alchemy and Incompleteness
• Florence Grant (History, KCL) and Chloe Porter (English, KCL) - Closing Remarks

Part of The Festival of Materials & Making - Kings College London