Transformative Practices

The Transformative Practices Research Group at Manchester School of Art is a community of art, design and craft researchers focused on the ways that we shape the world through provocative and critical lines of inquiry and practice.

Research in the group looks at the ways that individual and collective practices in art, design and craft are being transformed by new philosophies, technologies, ontologies, politics and environment, and how art, design and craft researchers themselves transform social, material and cultural life.

Our research is wide-ranging, exploring themes around making, materiality, community, culture and heritage. Although located in Manchester (UK) our work has national and international significance. We use our generative research practices to reframe contemporary issues (e.g. social justice, climate, migration) or reimagine futures (e.g. technological, urban, environmental).

The Transformative Practices Research Group is co-led by Dr Philip Ely (Reader in Design) and Dr Gemma Potter (Research Associate).