On my positionality
Also from the brief was this quote:
“Notice and reflect on your positionality, embodiments, and practices as a researcher”
My positionality is that I’m a white European male, from a lower middle-class background. I was educated at Central Saint Martins, a leading European art & design school and then went on to work in industry for a boutique design agency in London, Fraser Muggeridge studio, before setting up my own studio, working mainly with cultural and arts clients (predominantly white, middle class clients and audiences). My upbringing, where I’ve lived and worked, where I’ve studied design and who and what I’ve worked with in terms of clients, audiences, content and contexts has undoubtedly shaped and influenced my sense of aesthetics, taste, what I consider good/bad practice, no matter how much I try and acknowledge these biases, they exist. As a design practitioner, I value aesthetics, notions of ‘beauty’ and style, consider my work to be research-led, experimental and playful and I work with communities of people on projects and try to adapt to different people and scenarios.
My teaching practice is very much rooted in an industry-related perspective. So while I’m not necessarily training students for a vocation, I do frame my teaching in terms of industry context. How are these skills, techniques, knowledges and experiments related to what it means to practice design in an industrial context.
Learning a craft, how to make things really well, has been important in my development and I see that as important to design students and important to preserve in teaching.