An Evening of Craft, Digitality, and Critical Reflection: Artist Talks

Join the Craft and the Digital Turn (CDT) team in partnership with the Craft & Design Studio Residency at Harbourfront Centre and OCAD University for a thought-provoking artist talk and discussion emerging from the CDT SSHRC funded international Partnership Development Grant initiative. This event brings together an international trio of educators, makers and researchers who will share insights from their involvement in the project and their individual practices.

We will hear from Dr. Cynthia Villagómez (University of Guanajuato, MX) who will discuss the role of technology in traditional craft processes through the community initiative Fábrica de Artes y Oficios. Geoffery Mann (Manchester School of Art, UK) will speak about his twenty-year trajectory engaging with emergent technologies and craft processes and Dr. Niklavs Rubenis (University of Tasmania, AU) will reflect on a pilot project that connects the creative sector with the waste industry. The conversation will explore the dynamic intersection of contemporary craft and digital technologies, touching on themes of community, the economic dimensions of craft, and the transformative potential of digital tools. The speakers will consider how digitality enables new forms of fluidity, reinterpretation, and the way that we can reuse, reinterpret, and repair our crafted world.

Related Programming: To build from nothing and also from everything – Thinking Through Craft and the Digital Turn: Open Studio.

This event is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Government of Canada (SSHRC) and OCAD University through a Partnership Development Grant. It is in partnership with Harbourfront Centre and is an Independent Project with DesignTO.

Image credit: Geoffery Mann, Flight takeoff, 2010, Long Exposure series, Kiln Cast glass, photo:Sylvain Deleu.

Image credit: Eduardo Garcia, studio shot dancers’ masks, 2025, photo: L. Heller.

Banner image credit: Niklavs Rubenis, Trove, 2016, Sourcing materials, still taken from the short film Crafting Waste by Brett Lamb.