Grant success: ARC Linkage Designing for sustainability using a transformative repair model

Yesterday the Minister for Education Dan Tehan officially announced a new round of Australian Research Council Linkage Project funding, and I’m very pleased this included my project Designing for sustainability using a transformative repair model with UNSW Art & Design’s Trent Jansen and Partners Investigators Brian Parkes from JamFactory and Lisa Cahill from Australian Design Centre. Fully funded for three years, the grant allows us to investigate a craft and design contributions to the field of transformative repair and reuse, helping to develop a sustainable design economy in Australia.

LP190100751: Designing for sustainability using a transformative repair model. The project will generate new knowledge in design-based repair and reuse of consumer products to develop a new community of craft and design practitioners, audience and clientele, in collaboration with leading Australian design and craft organisations. It responds to the pressing cultural and environmental burden of product obsolescence and consumer waste through innovation in transformative repair – a designed reworking of broken or discarded consumer objects that transforms their aesthetic appeal and cultural value. It applies transition design theory to develop localised progressions of the transformative repair model to foster knowledge exchange between partner organisation while contributing to a sustainable design economy in Australia.

We’ll be running case studies across three states and the project additionally has an excellent advisory team including waste and social practices scholar Professor Gay Hawkins, sustainable designer Liane Rossler, and Dutch curator and repair expert Joanna van der Zanden. My thanks to my team at UNSW Art & Design and all involved. Watch this space.