Research Café: Materials in Civic Futures

‘Materials in Civic Futures’ brought together academics working across Humanities and Science and Engineering to discuss interdisciplinary perspectives on the lives of materials and material thinking.

PANEL
Chair – Dr Jenna C. Ashton, Research Lead for Creative and Civic Futures, Creative Manchester.
Jenna C. Ashton is a Lecturer in Heritage Studies at The University of Manchester and an arts-practice researcher working on cultural analysis and theory at the nexus between community heritage, ecologies, place, and social and environmental justice. She has a background in artmaking, exhibition curation, creative producing, and arts-education.

Dr Helen Holmes discusses her work on people's relationships with objects and materials and how a better understanding of these relationships can help society transition to a more circular and sustainable futures.

Dr Claudia Henninger focusses on how we treat materials at the end of their life by providing insights into fashion consumption and ultimately discarding behaviour.

Dr Catherine Casson talks about a collaborative research project with other historians and with colleagues from the Sustainable Consumption Institute on medieval practices of repair, reuse and recycling and their relevance to the present.

This Creative Manchester Research Café – in collaboration with Sustainable Futures - is the second of three exploring the significance of non-human presence and agency in theory and practice for imagining ‘Civic Futures.’

Plants in Civic Futures:    • Research Café: Plants in Civic Futures  

Animals in Civic Futures:    • Research Café: Animals in Civic Futures