Tangible thinking: Materializing how we imagine and understand systems, experiences, and relationships

This workshop asks how we can use methods drawn from design, art, and craft, informed by interdisciplinary and systems thinking, to materialize not just envisioned ‘things’, but abstract or invisible ideas and relationships. There is an emerging set of research practices using tangible or material models, or constructive making and embodying to visualize how people think about concepts ranging from invisible systems and infrastructures to mental models, personal data which would otherwise be invisible, or even the phenomenological dimensions of experiences themselves. Examples include explorations of the design of public services, healthcare processes, mental health experiences, career paths, crafters’ movements, and experiences of social networks (Aguirre Ulloa and Paulsen, 2017; Rygh and Clatworthy, 2019; Luria et al, 2019; Ricketts and Lockton, 2019; Nissen and Bowers, 2015; Fass, 2016).