DesignInquiry: Rewrite Building a subjective archive and interface

The Scene

It all began with an empty barn in an unfamiliar place during the summer of 2018. Through a series of seemingly uncoordinated and independent actions a kitchen, a cleanup area, a presentation area, a screen printing studio, and a host of responses to the theme, Rewrite, came together over a week. This was the experience that 24 people in Vinalhaven, Maine and 16 people in Devon, UK had while attending DesignInquiry, a gathering of practitioners from diverse fields who come together to generate new work and ideas around a single topic.

Meals were shopped for and prepared collaboratively, dishes were cleaned and put away while in conversation, and prompts were given and responded to. At the end of the week an impromptu exhibition of-sorts formed to highlight the work each participant had intended to complete, as well as work conjured up spontaneously.

When the last remnants of what we built in the barn were removed, we all asked “What’s next?” How can this work live on and be expanded upon?

The Framing: Rewrite

To design is always to redesign

~Bruno Latour 2008

Everyone carries precedents with them. It may be a memory, an object we are fond of, a quote that helps us clarify how we think, an idea we enjoy. These collected items find their way, directly and indirectly, into what we make. It could be an extension, a completion, and/or a diversion of what has been seen or done before.

How we synthesize our precedents is how our work is rewritten. Sometimes this is direct, and takes the form of inspiration. Other times it is a spark in the beginning, middle, or end of the process. Over the week at DesignInquiry, each inquirer explored deliberate and intuitive rewriting as an implicit part of the creative process.