Towards a Balanced Artistic Production Methodology/Pedagogy at AMPD through Critical Making and Sustainable Design 2020-2022

Description

The AMPD Makerspace’s central goal is to integrate digital fabrication and related technologies into AMPD curriculum and the activities of staff and students, in order to enhance experiential education opportunities, improve student learning outcomes, and foster intercultural and international work through invited exhibitions and external projects.  After almost a year of operations, we have realized that a more balanced view on technological progress at the Makerspace must be addressed, with particular regards to the amount of waste generated through prototyping.  This may be less an issue about the methodologies of artistic production, and more a systemic issue of routing, recycling and upcycling waste.  We also observe a general inertia in iterative designing and troubleshooting in fabrication with most students arriving at the Makerspace anticipating easy and immediate results.  While we are actively adapting our tools to achieve high efficiency levels, the mindsets in engagement with these digital tools could be more resilient.  Based on an initial evaluation of the Makerspace’s impact, the next steps in the development of the Makerspace are:

Development of a Sustainability program at the Makerspace in line with York University Sustainability Strategies, increasing the reach of workshops and innovative course activities, and to foster external collaborations to promote internalization of student activities.  Please stay updated at https://makerspace.ampd.yorku.ca/