Material Agency and Mutual Transformation: Found Objects as Materials for Making

Abstract

Taking as its point of departure the personal experience of finding a discarded rope on a remote beach, this essay describes the way found objects assert agency to become craft materials, and how, through the process of making, this changes both the found object and craftsperson. This mutual transformation is described here through three periods of interaction – finding, making, and the thematic development of an artwork – all varying lengths of time during which a found object influences a craftsperson’s actions, learning, ideas, and future making decisions. With reference to Michael David Kirchhoff’s concept of “agential condition,” in which objects are held to transform and mediate our understanding, and Jane Bennett’s theorizing on nonhuman entities acting as forces with their own tendencies, this essay proposes that an object’s ability to assert itself as a new craft material is influenced by a craftsperson’s heightened state of receptivity within the parameters of environment, available time, and a willingness to adapt a creative practice. Craftspeople often utilize and transform found objects in their work, but how they are changed by such materials isn’t always clear. Tracking an object’s assertion of agency throughout a multistep personal making process provides insight into such mutual influence and transformation.