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Kintsugi: The Art of Unfolding the Unknown
(workshop)
Kintsugi: The Art of Unfolding the Unknown
Alice Schippers & Mark Koning
For ages, the Japanese art of kintsugi has been practised to repair broken ceramics with golden lacquer in several stages, carefully and lovingly. Instead of glueing as invisibly as possible, fracture lines became visible. Missing parts were filled and coloured gold.
According to Japanese aesthetics, the traces of breakage and repair contribute to the beauty of an object. In this way, the unique history of an object is highlighted; the cracks are not concealed but rather emphasised. What is no longer connected is connected in an aesthetic way that also ensures that the sum is greater than its parts. In this art form, one also finds notions of accepting inevitable change.
In modern (Western) times, kintsugi is also used as a metaphor for repairing relationships and doing social justice. Moreover, the mindful technique taps into practical, tacit, embodied, and affective sources of knowledge: it says the unsayable and unfolds the unknown. Here, kintsugi relates to epistemic justice in opportunities to repair ignored, non-normative, “less able” or “impaired” ways of knowledge and knowledge production.
In this workshop, we will experience the unsayable by mending broken pieces with gold. In practising kintsugi, we will explore if and how we can recognise and acknowledge alternative ways of knowing. Is it possible to deconstruct and repair ableist and “neuronormative” epistemologies – and do epistemic justice?
We will provide all materials, but you are more than welcome to bring your own cherished, whether broken or not, (small) ceramic item!
Note 1: As a duo of a non-conventional and an academic researcher, we will both facilitate and take part in the workshop.
Note 2: We will provide alt-text for any slides or visual materials we use. Please let us know if we need to provide any other accommodations.
Alice Schippers is professor of Disability Studies, by special appointment on behalf of Disability Studies in Nederland, at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht, the Netherlands. From an early age she is interested in living with disabilities, as natural part of her life. As a teenager, started with a voluntary job in the disability field and from that experience onwards, she acted in several roles in this field: As a researcher and leader, as a volunteer and activist, as a mother and friend. From mid 1990's, her research focus is on (Family) Quality of Life, Social Inclusion and Transdisciplinary and Inclusive Research. She is a strong advocate of collaborative research with and by people with disability and neurodiverse experience. Alice is Fellow of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IASSIDD), co-founder of the Inclusive Research Group and currently Member of the Board of IASSIDD. Next to that, she is associate editor with two international journals and also active in several (inter)national committees.
Mark Koning is co-researcher at Disability Studies in Nederland, based at the University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, the Netherlands. He started in 2017 as a part-time employee for a research project that was linked with Disability Studies. He did this next to his job as a self-advocate in the Participation Council of national care provider Philadelphia. Since 2020, he continued his research career in several other projects. The projects are focused on important social-cultural themes amongst others on digital support, robotics and family quality of life, and sexuality. All these projects were innovative by nature. Also, it is important to mention that the studies are increasingly multi- and transdisciplinary. Where co-research is part of the studies in its own right.
Location
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Amersfoortsestraat 20
3769 AS Soesterberg
Online
Contact info Louis van den Hengel
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