There are some important philosophical or theoeritcal origins for maker spaces and what they represent. We note them here in outline because we believe they help us keep hold of how we turn the idea into practice.
The idea of working together on a common project for the benefit of participants and the wider community won’t be turned into practice unless we design and practice, it that way. For example, it may be that we decide (a future steering group and Maker Space members) that projects must be collaborative in significant ways. We may also decide that all projects must, again in some signicant ways, have benefit for the the wider community. We, as initial developers of the project, are commited to both of these. However, these deisions won’t automatically turn into the culture and practice of the Maker Space, we have to make it happen in practice through the way the organisation is operated and governed. So below are some of the ideas we share as a starting point for future development of the Maker Space.
Maker Space Witney – Philosophy 101
‘Prod any happy person and you will find a project’ (Happiness: Lessons from a New Science Richard Layard London Penguin 2006). We all need purpose in our lives, we need in some way to make our mark in the world, often in small but meaningful and sigificant ways. Making, as Richard Gauntlett writes, is in a number of ways tied to connecting, he writes;
‘I mean this in three principle ways;
- Making is connecting because you have to connect things together (materials, ideas or both) to make something new;
- Making is connecting because acts of creativity usually involve, at some point, a social dimension and connect us with other people;
- And making is connecting because through making things and sharing them in the world, we increase our engagement and connection with our social and physical environments’. (Gauntlett 2018)
We don’t think everyone has to sign up up to this in joining a maker space! We do think that using the skills and experience that we bring to making things together cannot be wasted. Young or old being part of a community that makes things has a range of benefits. These include benefits for our physical and mental health but also our sense of care and responsbility for each other and the communities in which we live. We believe that connection, in the ways that David Gauntlett suggests, is central to our health and wellbeing and to and active community.
So making is connecting and drawing together skills and experience in our community is our starting point for wanting to develop a Maker Space for Witney.
However, there is also another reason behind our efforts to bring people together in a Maker Space; we are all everyday designers. This may seem a bit crazy given that designers study design theory and practice at university, in what way can we be designers? Victor Papanek, a designer who advocated design which was socially and ecologically responsibile, wrote ‘almost all that we do all the time is design, for design is basic to all human activity (Design for the Real World). He defined design as the planning and patterning of any act towards a desired end. We want to argue that the idea of active citizenship, where we have both rights and responsibilities to each other, requires us all to plan and pattern our lives in community towards socially desirable ends.
These are our starting points, but what we need now is to share our vision and make it a reality together, through developing a Maker Space in Witney. We look forward to making/connecting and designing with everyone who joins with us.
MakerSpace Witney 