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Supported Projects

Making Futures®

Making Futures® is a research platform exploring contemporary craft and maker movements as ‘change agents’ in 21st century society.

Making Futures 2015 a room of people listen to a lecture at the Making Futures conference

Making Futures® 2015: Delegates listen to a lecture at the 2015 edition of the Making Futures® conference.

<p dir="ltr">Every two years, a Making Futures® conference or event takes place and a journal is produced. Making Futures® is produced by Arts University Plymouth, and from 2009 - 2021 was curated by Malcolm Ferris.</p> <p dir="ltr">Making Futures® investigates contemporary craft and maker movements as ‘change agents’ within 21st century society, particularly in relation to global sustainability agendas, social entrepreneurialism and community regeneration. Convinced of the transformative potential of small-scale making and its capacity to contribute to new progressive futures, Making Futures® seeks to situate these material cultures at the centre of the critical issue facing global consumer society: how we move beyond the reductive instrumentalism of 'homo economicus' and mass consumption, towards a political economy capable of valuing our needs for social well being and resilient communities, that incorporates concerns for non-human natures.</p> <p>Each edition of the Making Futures® Journal brings together submissions from an international cast of scholars, artists, makers and curators worldwide, representing a spectrum of responses to the corresponding Making Futures® conference and organised through the thematic fields, panels, and workshops of that event.</p> <p><strong>All editions of previous journals can be accessed via the new <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/research/research-groups#making-futures-journal"><u>Making Futures Journal</u></a> site which will launch in Spring 2024</strong>.<br /></p> <p>To find out more about Making Futures®, please email <a href="mailto:makingfutures@aup.ac.uk"><strong>makingfutures@aup.ac.uk</strong></a>.<br /></p>