Invent Design Make

Making even quite simple things, is a political act – it is important! It is a counter to “sit-back-and-be-told” culture. Making things is demanding, in the way it forces us to participate, and to make new connections.

Last month we held our first open workshop event and signed up our first members – very exciting! The name Flowering Elbow, when it came to us, partly appealed because

“Take a piece of wood – plane, sand, and oil it, and you will find it a beautiful thing. The more you do to it from then on, the more chance that you will make it worse.” Tage Frid 1979 So I came across this quote from the late woodworking monster Tage Frid while we were […]

So, Flowering Elbow attended the first Mend*rs symposium 29th June-2nd July. Organised by three inspired menders and scholars: Jonnet Middleton, Guiseppe Salva and Beck Collins with the aim of: ‘bring[ing] together an emergent community of research around issues of repair. By research we include practice-based research, arts-based research, activist research as well as traditional academic inquiry. We want to […]