Papers by Nicolò Di Prima
Antropologia, 2020
Starting from our long experience in a participatory laboratory conducted by means of design and ... more Starting from our long experience in a participatory laboratory conducted by means of design and anthropology, we reflect on the contribution of creative and practical activities to the creation of collaborative communities of practice. The lab involves homeless people, researchers, university students, educators, and artists in the crafting of different artefacts. By describing the processes behind the creation of the artefacts, we will examine which kind of objects are produced, and the forms of community generated through a collaborative way of making. The objects, that are not allowed into the economic circuit, allow us to reflect on participatory practices beyond the competitive modes that prevail in the market. The laboratory – which is part of the day care services for homeless adults of the Municipality of Turin – has become a space of freedom and experimentation, despite the increasing bureaucratisation of the social services system. The laboratory is also an experiment in “creative resistance”, in which all participants can craft beauty.
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<<Illuminazioni>>. Rivista di Lingua, Letteratura e Comunicazione, 2017
The article presents methods and tools for an action research against homelessness conducted in I... more The article presents methods and tools for an action research against homelessness conducted in Italy by an interdisciplinary group involving anthropologists and designers. Within participatory laboratories, homeless people works with researchers and students, educators, artisans and artists, experimenting, through creative languages, a “dialogic collaboration” that overcomes the differences.
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Thesis Chapters by Nicolò Di Prima
“The Object as Relationship. Ethnography of a Participatory Workshop between Anthropology and Des... more “The Object as Relationship. Ethnography of a Participatory Workshop between Anthropology and Design”, is an ethnography of a permanent collective crafting workshop (“Crafting Beauty”) that involves design and anthropology researchers and students, social workers, artisans and homeless people.
The analysis starts with the idea, derived from Material Culture Studies, that between subjects and objects there is an intertwined and dialectic relationship, since the subject himself is the result of the object-production process.
In this perspective, design and production are not so much about final forms and solutions: they are meant instead as form-giving acts, perduring processes, continuously enfolded in a historical and ecological context and deeply intertwined with the concept of dwelling.
My thesis takes as its starting point the analysis of homeless shelters, showing how these places – often decaying suburban buildings – produce an “incorporation of disequality” and social marginalization. There, individuals are considered as mere “guest-inhabitant” and they cannot express opinions, judgements and choices. This produces a kind of “passive dwelling” that consists in a suspension of living dynamics, decreasing individuals' capacity and liberty of action.
The Crafting Beauty workshop reverses this process by calling the attention of shelters' inhabitants and other participants’ on space and objects design. The nature of collective craftmanship work requires everybody's active and practical participation, sharing skills, abilities and competences without preconceptions. During the design process, subjects forge relationships, meet together and produce social and economic value for themselves and the community.
The ethnographical analysis develops within the practical space of the workshop, through the processes by which subjects and objects mutually shape themselves: gestures, discussions, mistakes, successes and various life stories arising from work-process. Therefore, designing and producing objects represents a chance for different desires and perspectives to emerge. Objects take an unveiling and mediation role.
The researching work has been useful to understand how design tools can facilitate confrontation: by simple and accessible crafting choices and by a design language that uses frameworks, drawings and prototypes able to give form to thoughts and ideas. In addition, artefacts quality is guaranteed by a common idea of beauty, meaning that objects become the meeting point of various concepts of beauty that anyone can express and share. This variable idea of beauty is the result of a continuous confrontation and debate among participants: a collective designed and produced beauty.
The crafting process of the workshop is based on the relationship between individuals. This requires an extreme attention to social interaction; that's the reason why the anthropological perspective, which deals very carefully with the “other”, takes a fundamental role. The anthropological approach doesn't produce only ex-post theories but it has also a in-itinere effect during teamwork.
In this inclusive and participatory environment – encouraged by the anthropological approach – the crafting practice represents a chance to mutually learn new perspectives and skills. This modality of interaction, based on equal freedom of expression, and committed to the production of “beauty”, causes a production-context that can change and respond in a variable, but coherent way to the needs and requests of its inhabitants.
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Papers by Nicolò Di Prima
Thesis Chapters by Nicolò Di Prima
The analysis starts with the idea, derived from Material Culture Studies, that between subjects and objects there is an intertwined and dialectic relationship, since the subject himself is the result of the object-production process.
In this perspective, design and production are not so much about final forms and solutions: they are meant instead as form-giving acts, perduring processes, continuously enfolded in a historical and ecological context and deeply intertwined with the concept of dwelling.
My thesis takes as its starting point the analysis of homeless shelters, showing how these places – often decaying suburban buildings – produce an “incorporation of disequality” and social marginalization. There, individuals are considered as mere “guest-inhabitant” and they cannot express opinions, judgements and choices. This produces a kind of “passive dwelling” that consists in a suspension of living dynamics, decreasing individuals' capacity and liberty of action.
The Crafting Beauty workshop reverses this process by calling the attention of shelters' inhabitants and other participants’ on space and objects design. The nature of collective craftmanship work requires everybody's active and practical participation, sharing skills, abilities and competences without preconceptions. During the design process, subjects forge relationships, meet together and produce social and economic value for themselves and the community.
The ethnographical analysis develops within the practical space of the workshop, through the processes by which subjects and objects mutually shape themselves: gestures, discussions, mistakes, successes and various life stories arising from work-process. Therefore, designing and producing objects represents a chance for different desires and perspectives to emerge. Objects take an unveiling and mediation role.
The researching work has been useful to understand how design tools can facilitate confrontation: by simple and accessible crafting choices and by a design language that uses frameworks, drawings and prototypes able to give form to thoughts and ideas. In addition, artefacts quality is guaranteed by a common idea of beauty, meaning that objects become the meeting point of various concepts of beauty that anyone can express and share. This variable idea of beauty is the result of a continuous confrontation and debate among participants: a collective designed and produced beauty.
The crafting process of the workshop is based on the relationship between individuals. This requires an extreme attention to social interaction; that's the reason why the anthropological perspective, which deals very carefully with the “other”, takes a fundamental role. The anthropological approach doesn't produce only ex-post theories but it has also a in-itinere effect during teamwork.
In this inclusive and participatory environment – encouraged by the anthropological approach – the crafting practice represents a chance to mutually learn new perspectives and skills. This modality of interaction, based on equal freedom of expression, and committed to the production of “beauty”, causes a production-context that can change and respond in a variable, but coherent way to the needs and requests of its inhabitants.
The analysis starts with the idea, derived from Material Culture Studies, that between subjects and objects there is an intertwined and dialectic relationship, since the subject himself is the result of the object-production process.
In this perspective, design and production are not so much about final forms and solutions: they are meant instead as form-giving acts, perduring processes, continuously enfolded in a historical and ecological context and deeply intertwined with the concept of dwelling.
My thesis takes as its starting point the analysis of homeless shelters, showing how these places – often decaying suburban buildings – produce an “incorporation of disequality” and social marginalization. There, individuals are considered as mere “guest-inhabitant” and they cannot express opinions, judgements and choices. This produces a kind of “passive dwelling” that consists in a suspension of living dynamics, decreasing individuals' capacity and liberty of action.
The Crafting Beauty workshop reverses this process by calling the attention of shelters' inhabitants and other participants’ on space and objects design. The nature of collective craftmanship work requires everybody's active and practical participation, sharing skills, abilities and competences without preconceptions. During the design process, subjects forge relationships, meet together and produce social and economic value for themselves and the community.
The ethnographical analysis develops within the practical space of the workshop, through the processes by which subjects and objects mutually shape themselves: gestures, discussions, mistakes, successes and various life stories arising from work-process. Therefore, designing and producing objects represents a chance for different desires and perspectives to emerge. Objects take an unveiling and mediation role.
The researching work has been useful to understand how design tools can facilitate confrontation: by simple and accessible crafting choices and by a design language that uses frameworks, drawings and prototypes able to give form to thoughts and ideas. In addition, artefacts quality is guaranteed by a common idea of beauty, meaning that objects become the meeting point of various concepts of beauty that anyone can express and share. This variable idea of beauty is the result of a continuous confrontation and debate among participants: a collective designed and produced beauty.
The crafting process of the workshop is based on the relationship between individuals. This requires an extreme attention to social interaction; that's the reason why the anthropological perspective, which deals very carefully with the “other”, takes a fundamental role. The anthropological approach doesn't produce only ex-post theories but it has also a in-itinere effect during teamwork.
In this inclusive and participatory environment – encouraged by the anthropological approach – the crafting practice represents a chance to mutually learn new perspectives and skills. This modality of interaction, based on equal freedom of expression, and committed to the production of “beauty”, causes a production-context that can change and respond in a variable, but coherent way to the needs and requests of its inhabitants.