deep, slow thinking

Material Encounters is a space for deep, slow thinking about the social, ecological, and material worlds.

It is a hybrid endeavor, encompassing art as social practice, research, and community-building. It is also the emergence of a lifelong creative exploration.

Material Encounters will seek to engage with material as a tangible, tactile element, as well as its metaphorical, shape-shifting aspects. We will pay attention to material’s transformative capacity: both its entanglement in our economic, social, aesthetic, and intellectual lives; and also its inherent intersectionality and interdisciplinary-ness. We want to work, play, and practice in the spaces of material ecology; material and the hand; local ecosystems, and the building of an alternative, collaborative, hopeful space for practicing art, craft, and industry.

In the spirit of social practice this platform is intended to be a collaborative effort, a dialogue. Please share your thoughts and ideas. And if you like what you find here, please share the site with friends and colleagues. I am attempting to grow our audience without social media. I’m determined to remind us of what we already know: that human beings are a community, that we live in a natural network. I’d like to practice taking back my time and my attention (praise to How To Do Nothing, Resisting The Attention Economy by Jenny O’Dell), and develop this community through old fashioned, analog know-how.