Wow! engaging learners, enriching learning & energising teaching. Kirsten Hardie, National...

Wow! engaging learners, enriching learning & energising teaching. 

Kirsten Hardie, National Teaching FellowAssociate Professor, Arts University at Bournemouth

Kirsten

Images of AUB students: © AUB

Educationalists disregard, both in their books and in their schools, the origin and purpose of the objects in museums; they use them as the basis of their courses and urge on their pupils to outdo examples already exceptional of their kind, thus encouraging them to fill our lives with the impractical showpieces with clutter and distort our existence.

Le Corbusier, Decorative Art Today, 1925.

Inspiration for the AUB

collection came from my use, as a students, of

the Staffordshire Universitycollection

which is now called the

Betty Smithers Collection

Image of AUB items: © Kirsten Hardie

Images MoDiP items: © MoDiP, AUB

- inform, excite and inspire - creative ideas

- critical and analytical skills

- communication

- support specialist study – social, cultural, political, economic, technological & historical

- the study of design, materials, manufacture and technology

- to explore issues and attitudes - taste, popular culture, trends, styles and design - to integrate theory and practice

learning

• Student centred• Experiential• Problem-based

• Fun• Memorable• Accessible

SubjectivelyObjectivelyExperience of objects and lifestyle preferenceInfluence – eg. media, exhibitionsEducation – knowledge of objects…Fashion, stylesAesthetic judgement - tasteLifestyle preference Images MoDiP items: © MoDiP, AUB

Design judgements

• Social meanings of everyday domestic items

Values • Positioning - hierarchies• Subjective• Personal - ‘individual delectation’ Attfield,J. 2005

• Memory and history• Material culture• Different attitudes, perspectives• ‘corntemporary’

Images MoDiP items: © MoDiP, AUB

function and formuse

ergonomicssize, handling, storage

recyclingshapecolourstyle

Alessi Images MoDiP items: © MoDiP, AUB

ergonomics

Images MoDiP items: © MoDiP, AUB

Factors in the development of designsocial, cultural, historical, technological…

• What• Where it happens• When• Connections• People – creators, manufacturers,

marketing, audiences, consumers

‘..abundance is responsible for well-designed consumer products that transcend functionality and appeal to us on an emotional level.

But not only does abundance move us to demand and buy things that look and feel cool, it also frees us to pursue nonmaterial transcendence, meaning and fulfilment.’

Need for appealing design, emotion. empathy and playfulness.

Daniel Pink. (2005) A whole new mind: moving from an information age to the conceptual age.

Image of toilet brushes: © Kirsten Hardie

‘Only against a backdrop of abundance could so many people seek beautiful trash cans and toilet brushes – converting mundane, utilitarian products into products of desire.’

Daniel Pink. (2005)

location - environment - context

Image of toilet brushes: © Kirsten Hardie

‘Good design is intelligence made visible.’ Frank Pick; London Underground

Image of AUB item: © Kirsten Hardie

‘Design is doing things differently, and better’. James Dyson

plastic & nylon bristlesgrip & protection

materialsproduction process

manufacturecost

target audiencecompetitorsmarketing

Image of Alessi toilet brush -AUB item: © Kirsten Hardie

Image © K.Hardie

‘Less is More’ Louis Sullivan

‘Less is not more, less is a bore’Robert Venturi

Image of toilet brush: © Kirsten Hardie

‘Ah, Good Taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness.’ Pablo Picasso

Image of toilet brushes -AUB items: © Kirsten Hardie

Kitsch

defies definition to cheapen , novelty, bad taste, sentimental, souvenirs, throwaway, mass produced, poor quality, cheap materials, jokey, happy, trash aesthetic, crude, smut, vulgar, inauthentic, synthetic, false?

‘Kitsch is the culture of the masses’ Art critic: Clement Greenberg

Image of toilet brushes -AUB items: © Kirsten Hardie

Image of toilet brushes -AUB items: © Kirsten Hardie

Image of toilet brushes -AUB items: © Kirsten Hardie

Enjoyment, Inspiration and CreativityKnowledge and UnderstandingSkillsReflectionAttitudes and ValuesAction, Response, Reflection, BehaviourGroup work

Thank you

Kirsten Hardiekhardie@aub.ac.uk