Cooperative Fashion 1 and 2

(with Madeleine King)

2008

Time-lapse video

​

“A successful or productive design/creative process is often assumed to be one that follows an efficient or direct path—either from the inspiration to the product, or from the creative problem to the solution.  

 

But sometimes having an idea, planning the outcome and then translating the idea into a finished object of design or art isn't quite so straightforward, direct or simple.  

 

Indeed, we feel that most design and art (or at least, the stuff untouched by the carefully rationalised and streamlined processes of commercial manufacture) is created via a multitude of indirect, exploratory and sometimes rambling paths between problem and solution, or inspiration and product. And, of course, it often needn't start with a sketch or even an inspired idea.  

 

As practitioners we are both heartened and intimidated to know that there is never a single solution and scarcely even a single problem. What excites us about the creative process is that the design/art object is never a lone outcome—rather,  the creative process produces a multitude of constructive outcomes, including the knowledge and enjoyment of the process itself.

 

We're interested in processes that aren't necessarily efficient, rationalised or elegant.  The processes we enjoy and find creatively sustaining can be irrational, uncontrolled and even arbitrary—processes that open up as many problems as they do solutions."