HOME/MAKING: A SERIES OF EVENTS AT THE INTERSECTION OF 'CRAFT' AND 'HOME'
Home/Making symposium: May 12-13, 2023
Hosted by Elaine Cheasley Paterson and Molly-Claire Gillett
Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke|Mooniyang|Montreal
Home/Making is a series of events culminating in a two-day, multidisciplinary and multi-modal
symposium exploring the intersection of two concepts: craft and home. These terms are
expansive, but also unstable, contingent on issues of labour, land, identity, belonging, gender,
race, and class. ‘Home’ can be a shelter, a land, a mindset; a place of nourishment, oppression,
or labor; contested, sought after, to be escaped. With meaning that shifts according to historical,
cultural, socio-economic, and gendered context, the word ‘craft’ applied to cultural production
can be subversive, demeaning, elevating or tokenizing; craft is also a verb, a practice, an ethos of
making and doing.
Drawing these terms together opens the discussion to a wide range of critical perspectives on
craft, design, architecture, urbanism and more. Through a series of panels, workshops, and
keynote speakers, in-person and accessible online, we will draw practitioners and scholars
working on these topics into a conversation about craft work in the home, the home as a crafted
space, and other triangulations of our two central concepts. Following the symposium events, we
will develop key presentations into an edited volume.
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“Home/Making: intersections of craft and home” will begin with a keynote presentation by the
Home/Making resident (tbd), on April 14. A series of workshops in various Concordia spaces will
be scheduled throughout the end of April and beginning of May. On May 12-13, the symposium
will be held and creative work emerging from the residency, workshops, and submitted by
symposium attendees will be on display at 4th Space, in the Concordia Webster Library, with a
second keynote lecture on May 12. As many events as possible will be streamed live and
archived online.
We invite submissions of creative work, research-creation, paper and panel proposals, engaging
with the intersection of craft and home, for the exhibition and symposium that will conclude the
Home/Making series.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
-craft and geography, landscape, regionality
-craft/design and the planet as home
-cottage industries
-contemporary DIY culture
-craft at home during the Covid-19 lockdowns
-the internet, social media and the increasing
visibility of craft work conducted at home
-crafting home for marginalized demographics
-‘craftivism’ and ‘home’
-craft and virtual homes
-craft in ‘unhomely’ spaces
-craft and land, place, mapping
-craft as a way to feel ‘at home’
-craft and family life, intergenerational
relationships, craft and aging
-a ‘home’ for craft: museums and archives
-home as a space of agency/oppression for
makers
-making in the home vs. outside of the
home, the resonance of home-production in
craft and design
-‘home’ as a way into complicating the
craft/design dialectic
-‘craft’ as a way of complicating notions of
‘home’
-domestic practices such as cooking and
cleaning as craft
-crafting places to dwell, architecture and
urbanism as craft
-crafting interior spaces, interior design
-materials and technology, the ethos of craft in
construction, vernacular architecture
We invite submissions of creative work, research creation, and academic papers in four formats:
1. Creative work / research-creation work, to be displayed in 4th Space, our venue, during
the symposium. This may take the form of a poster, the work itself, or a display of
photographs/other documentation. Should you wish to submit work, please send a short text
of up to 300 words describing the work in the context of your practice, in relation to craft and
home, and providing technical or display needs, as well as 2-5 images.
2. 15-minute paper presentations: please send an abstract of up to 300 words.
Panel proposals: please send a brief description and title for your panel, as well as a list of
presenters and individual abstracts of up to 300 words.
3. 10 minute-lightning talks, in virtual format to allow for remote participation: please send
an abstract of up to 300 words, clearly indicating your preference for remote participation.
If you have questions about these formats, or ideas for alternate submissions, feel free to email
us. Please send the materials relevant to your submission, along with a short bio (50-100 words)
to homemaking2023@gmail.com by December 30, 2022.
Should you wish to be added to the Home/Making mailing list, or have any questions about the
events, please do get in touch! We look forward to welcoming you to Concordia in Spring 2023.
Elaine Cheasley Paterson and Molly-Claire Gillett
The CFP can also be viewed here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sU1fHYgk2WC7Be3b-sUAarjcfgFJjW4J/view?usp=sharing
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