Wednesday 09 May 2018 – Lunchtime seminar with Jackie Leaver and Mark Fisher (Senior lecturers, Product & Furniture Design)

Speakers: Jackie Leaver and Mark Fisher (Product & Furniture Design)
Title: Developing as a researcher: reflections on recent practice

Jackie Leaver and Mark Fisher are Senior Lecturers on the Product and Furniture Design course at SHU. In this seminar they will each share their recent ADRC-funded research. Although the research outputs of these two projects are relatively modest, they have each provided an opportunity for Jackie and Mark to learn about shaping a research study and to a certain extent, re-focus their respective research interests. Following the two project presentations, they would welcome the opportunity for an open discussion around early career research.

Jackie Leaver
Doing it for ourselves
This work builds on insights gained from the ADRC-funded group project ‘Caring for places and things’ (Gwilt et al, 2015), which highlighted that while practical resourcefulness and improvisation might be used as ‘caring’ strategies within the home, there was a lack of interest, or will, to engage in the more complex matters of home maintenance or DIY. This new study seeks to understand the recent decline in traditional modes of home maintenance and DIY and ask whether more personalised, creative and portable interventions might engender engagement and in turn encourage the longevity and sustainability of the spaces we occupy and objects we possess.

Mark Fisher
Google Cardboard as an intergenerational research tool
This ADRC-funded project is a pilot study to test the potential for Google Cardboard to act as a low-cost, virtual reality intergenerational research tool. In partnership with SHU Psychology Senior Lecturer, Dr Elizabeth Freeman, Mark ran a creative workshop at Hunters Bar Primary School with infant school children and a separate session with a dementia patient group at Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield. Mark will share insights from both workshops, with particularly detailed analysis of the infant school workshop, including a thematic analysis of a focus group with the children, teaching assistants, and head teacher. The findings offer useful insights for future creative workshops and also some suggestions for how the kit itself might be re-designed for optimal user-experience.

1.00PM – 2.00PM
WEDNESDAY 09 MAY 2018
HPO MA DESIGN STUDIO 16.1.16

See here for details of other seminars in the series.

All SHU staff and students are welcome to attend the C3RI Lunchtime Research Seminars. If you are from outside of the University and would like to attend a seminar, please email the C3RI Administrator to arrange entry.