Find and Play: Fostering Creative Agency Through Making with Found Objects

Abstract

This thesis is about our relationship to the objects around us: the things we make, use, and waste. It posits the need to take ownership over anthropic material through the act of making with found objects to reassign value to waste while fostering creative agency. Found objects and designers enter an active dialogue of physical form finding through experimentation that capitalizes upon the inherent richness of the object. Working at the scale of furniture, the experiments employ an iterative, informal design process. The design process is documented using process notation, facilitating a translation that is generative by nature. The resulting handbook reinforces the art of inquiry, imploring people to 'play' in design and making, where the outcome is co-authored by the designer and the objects. Intended as a boundless catalyst of public creative agency, the handbook celebrates the non-linear nature of working with imperfect objects to instill a wasteless mindset.