The importance of analogue skills in a digital future

Join us for the Social Change Symposium keynote as Professor Susan Luckman (University of South Australia) considers our communal structures of care, foregrounding craft skills as important enablers of care within a more sustainable, ethical and digital future.

Released during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Care Collective's 'The Care Manifesto' argued that communal structures of care are essential to our communities and polities. It added to discussions on the problems of modern capitalism and questioned the focus on endless economic growth.

This presentation foregrounds craft skills as enablers of care, given the central role they play as the key point of contact, and impact, between humans and the environment. The importance of craft skills in facilitating more ethical ways of engaging with our everyday material worlds is highlighted. It argues that the loss of craft skills is an increasing problem across the English-speaking countries of the Global North, poorly equipping these communities to enact necessary changes towards the more sustainable and caring futures demanded by the climate crisis.

 

Speaker

Susan Luckman is a Professor of Culture and Creative Industries and Director of the Creative People, Products and Places Research Centre (CP3) at the University of South Australia. She is the Chief Investigator on ARC Discovery projects 'The Value of Craft Skills to the Future of Making in Australia' and 'Artisanal Making and the Future of Small-Scale Local Production'. Among other books, chapters and journal articles, Susan is the author of Craftspeople and Designer Makers in the Contemporary Creative Economy, Craft and the Creative Economy and Locating Cultural Work.

This keynote address is presented for the RMIT Social Change Symposium. A networking reception with refreshments will follow the keynote presentation.

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RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

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aboriginal flag
torres strait flag

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.

More information