T2C at Autex International 2017
At the end of May T2C researcher Professor Rebecca Earley attended the Autex International Textiles conference 2017, themed 'Shaping the Future of Textiles'. The venue was in sunny Corfu, where 412 delegates met over three days to see 309 papers and 118 posters.
Rebecca presented a paper written with Dr Rosie Hornbuckle which explored the use of the simple postcard as a communication tool within the project; 'Postcards from the Edge: Trash-2-Cash communication tools used to support inter-disciplinary work towards a Design Driven Material Innovation (DDMI) methodology'.
In this paper, postcards from the EU funded Horizon 2020 Trash-2-Cash (2015-2018) project - completed by workshop participants – were presented in three tables with a focus on how they contributed to the building of communication channels, shared understanding and methods, in this inter-disciplinary consortium work. This inter-disciplanarity is key to achieving the project aims – but communication between sectors is challenging due to diverse expertise and levels of experience; language and cultural differences can also be barriers to collaboration as well. Designing easy and accessible, even fun, communication tools are one of the ways to help build relationships.
The cards reviewed were used in Prato (November 2015), Helsinki (February 2016) and London (November 2016). The paper concluded with insights for the ongoing development of the project communications work towards the Design Driven Material Innovation (DDMI) methodology, due to be presented at the end of the project in 2018.
Conference proceedings will be published in due course; for more information go to the Autex website.