Dovetails: personhood, citizenship, and craft between children and older adults

Abstract

This paper presents Dovetails, an intergenerational co-creative participatory design project, and explored ways of working with recipients of care through Craft methods leveraging reciprocity to support wellbeing and Citizenship. Working alongside older adults from Beamish Museum’s wellbeing community and a children’s charity, researchers supported the two participating groups to design and make ambitious, novel artefacts for one another using woodwork. Each group learned new skills and sought to improve the lives of the other group’s members through making. We came to understand the artefacts created as material embodiments of care and we present transferable insight for future study design to encourage reciprocity through Craft. We contribute new nuanced understandings of Personhood and Citizenship in this context. Participants reported pride in their achievements, confounding expectations, raising ambitions, and reframing their understanding of their own wellbeing, for example in the context of dementia diagnosis. Dovetails bore meaningful benefits for individual participants and the groups themselves, beyond the timescale of our engagement, as they formed ongoing allegiances. We discuss framing design research through a ‘Craft Lens’, as a multi-faceted way to explore creative engagements, which enriched our understanding of making, and gift-giving to support Personhood through Social Citizenship.

Keywords:

• Participatory design
• dementia
• intergenerational
• citizenship
• craft
• personhood
• reciprocity
• care

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank all our participants, including their families and circles of care, who have participated in this study. Special thanks also to the staff and volunteers of who made this work possible, John Altoft, Paddy Clough, Ian Bean & Simon Harrison at Beamish, and Colin Ridley, Jude Billate, Tyler Reese, Yurery Marin & Stephanie Beckman at Kids Kabin. Thank you also to Johnny Hayes, Senior Technician, for all his support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Centre for Digital Citizens, with UKRI funding through EPRSC Project EP/T022582/1

Notes on contributors

Henry Collingham

Henry Collingham is a Product Designer and Innovation Fellow, based in CoCreate design research studio in Northumbria University’s School of Design. Principally working alongside people with dementia, his work focuses on democratizing design, the aesthetics of care, and design participation. He works with a diverse range of participants in the contexts of care, health and wellbeing, and citizenship.

Jayne Wallace

Jayne Wallace is Professor of Craft, Digital Creativity and Wellbeing at Northumbria University and leads the CoCreate research studio. She works across Design, Human Computer Interaction and Health fields on research predominantly related to ageing, dementia, and continuing bonds in bereavement. Central here are creative, participatory methods. She co-founded the Research Through Design conference (RTD) in 2013 and co-founded the Journal of Jewellery Research (JJR) in 2018.

Jill Brewster

Jill Brewster is a designer, maker, and researcher with a background in working on collaborative projects with communities and partner organizations, such as the NHS, healthcare providers, local authorities, community groups, culture, and heritage organizations. Her research interests are on the impact of practice-led research with a focus on participatory design and social practices.

Rickard Whittingham

Rickard Whittingham works as an Assistant Professor at Northumbria University. He has 25 years of teaching experience in various contexts from higher education through to community-based projects. Whilst teaching on the BA (hons) 3D Design programme he co-ordinates both the Designers in Residence scheme and the making-led research project Tools for Everyday Life at Northumbria University.

Sebastian Prost

Sebastian Prost works as an Innovation Fellow at the Centre for Digital Citizens at Northumbria University’s School of Design. His work explores the role of design-led participatory innovation and digital technology in responding to systemic issues, such as climate change, poverty, and discrimination. He is committed to work with marginalized communities in equitable research partnerships for social justice, sustainability, and democracy.

Justin Marshall

Dr Justin Marshall is Professor of Craft and Digital Making based in the Design School at Northumbria University. For over twenty years he has been investigating the integration of digital design and production technologies into craft practices. More broadly he is interested in how craft, as ethos and practice, can have value in multidisciplinary research projects that bring together diverse teams to investigate areas beyond the normal scope of craft practitioners.

Michelle Kindleysides

Michelle Kindleysides is Head of Health & Wellbeing at Beamish Museum, a large Open-Air Museum in the North East of England.  Since 2013 she has been developing a new and unique programme of health and wellbeing activities at the museum, working in partnership with, and learning from, local NHS Adult Mental Health Teams, Occupational Therapists and Social Prescribing Link workers. Michelle has become a well-known advocate for the benefits of combining arts and health practice, specializing in the use of museums and heritage; regularly presenting at national and international conferences and workshops, contributing case studies to publications and welcoming peers from other cultural venues across the globe to share her knowledge and experience.

Will Benson

Will Benson is the Chief Officer of Kids Kabin, a charity based in the North East of England. Kids Kabin works with young people and their communities, enabling learning and promoting well-being through creative, practical, problem-solving workshops. Will works closely with partner organizations, including community organizations, schools, and Universities, co-delivering projects and empowering low-income communities to contribute to research.