Workshop in collaboration with Una

Still headed in roughly the same direction, Una and I teamed up to run a workshop on Monday morning. (The 28th January, in the kitchen of the Diploma studio). Our guests: Marianne, Einar, Ingvild and Katarina.

While Una is looking at how products can be replaced with, or transformed into services (more on her blog), I seek to critically comment on the rapidly increasing (over-) consumption that Norwegians are presently responsible for, preferably taking the shape of a service. At this point, we are both interested in the emotions, values and motivations people have towards their belongings.

Tasks:
- Recall the last 10 things you have acquired (purchases as well as gifts). Please illustrate!
- Range the products from 1 – 10 (where 1 is the highest value)
- Write two key words for each thing that describe and justify how the item was ranged
- Pick the best 3 buys and make a note about the motivations for these
- You face bankruptcy!! ..and you have to sell everything. What would you sell last, and first, and why? What do you believe would be sold first? Why?
- Mark the things exclusively used by yourself with a star, shared items with a heart. (The last task was originally intended for Una’s project only, but I include it just in case.)

Results:
- 60 belonging of varying value to their 6 owners
- a number of personal reasons or justifications for the ownership
- an indication of what people spend their money on
- “excuses”/ reasons as to why money was spent

Observations:
- it was hard to remember ten things
- it was easy to talk about objects, reasons, uses, values
- reasons vary from practical to purely emotional
- needs seem to revolve around luxury, self realisation and small pleasures

Thank you: Marianne, Einar, Ingvild and Katarina!

Tags: drawing, illustration, other students, process, research, workshop