The "Making Thing Speak" workshop investigates objects and their agency-how they are transformed (or not) by their uses and contexts and how they impact human lives. The past twenty-five years have seen a proliferation of writing tracing social practices of exchange and consumption through the objects of material culture. This had added ton an already existing body of literature in museology and art history focusing on the objects themselves, their production and their exhibition.
Following objects across the boundaries of Europe and the Middle East, the workshop brings to gether perspectives from museology, art and architectural history, and social history. By combining object-based and social-based approaches, the aim of this workshop is not only to explore the tension between objects as exhibited and as everyday pieces, but also to discuss how the line separating the two is constituted, crossed and conceived of.