Maria Hanson, Reader in Jewellery & Metalwork and Programme Leader for MA Design at Sheffield Hallam University, discusses material, making and the study of design.
Since graduating with an MA from the Royal College of Art in London, Maria’s career journey has evolved through three decades of design experience, including national and international exhibitions and seven solo shows. She has worked with China on a number of projects, including a bilingual research project between Sheffield Hallam and China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts; as a mentor for an exchange with Shanghai University’s jewellery department; and as a tutor for masters’ degree students from China University of Geosciences.
The theme of Maria’s Smart Talk was ‘Wearable Stories: A Journey of Material and Making’ and was based on a journey of thinking through the form of material. She discussed how material objects can be used to examine ideas about identities and values, how discarded ‘things’ can be re-appropriated through creative making, and how objects, fragments and materials can be beautified and re-contextualised through the processes of craft.