Material Flows

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MATERIAL FLOWS

In the act of creation, the Maker does not simply impose his/her ideas onto passive material, but must think through the material. This demands an intimate knowledge of the material itself: its organic properties, how it responds to tools, and how it is processed. These material attributes point to larger flows.

The concept of material flows allows historians to look beyond a finished object and view media as a continuous chain of characteristics and events. This includes, but is not limited to, investigations of:

  • The organic makeup of a material and its natural environment
  • The labor, tools, and additional resources used to extract this material and process it
  • The locations where the material traveled and exchanged hands to end up in a studio, workshop, or factory
  • The aging process of the material, and how it is preserved
  • The lifespan of the object and how it is disposed of or recycled

Explorations of material flows offer historians opportunities to connect objects to political debates around material and labor in dynamic ways.

Additional Resources:

Tim Ingold, “Thinking through Making,” Lecture at the Institute for Northern Culture (2012).

Tim Ingold, “Toward an Ecology of Materials,” Annual Review of Anthropology 41 (2012): 427-42.

Minding Making