Broken—Mending and repair in a throwaway world

Plymouth Design Forum (PDF) is a monthly event that brings the creative community together to discuss, debate and promote design thinking in Plymouth.

This months event is being held at the Millennium Building on Union Street and see’s PDF and their sponsor G.F Smith host guest speaker Katie Treggiden—writer and keynote speaker championing a circular approach to design.

Katie Treggiden grew up surrounded by the natural world. An idyllic Cornish childhood spent in boats, on the beach or exploring the countryside was augmented by a fascination with nature documentaries, particularly those by her childhood hero David Attenborough. She read biology and marketing management at Oxford Brookes University, deepening her understanding of environmental issues while honing her communication skills, before embarking on a successful 12-year career in advertising, marketing and brand strategy.

In 2010, Treggiden shifted gears to become a craft and design journalist, focusing on creativity as a positive agent for social change. Having written four books, established an award-winning blog and an independent magazine, as well as contributing to publications such as The Guardian, Viewpoint, Design Milk, Crafts Magazine, Elle Decoration and Monocle24, she undertook a master’s degree in the history of design at the University of Oxford. She set herself an informal question to guide her research: ‘can craft save the world?’ She graduated in 2019 with, not only a distinction and papers on bio-facture, repair and the plastics crisis, but an answer to the question that has become the ‘North Star’ for an emerging body of work about the role that craft and design can play in sustainability and the circular economy. It was during her time at Oxford that she laid the groundwork for her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020) and her podcast Circular with Katie Treggiden.

She was the founder and first president of women’s network Bloom and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Trustee of the Leach Pottery.

At the event Katie will be talking about her background before reading from her new book Broken: Mending and Repair in a Throwaway World—her sixth book, with a foreword by The Repair Shop’s Jay Blades. Tackling the topic of repair, Katie explores the societal, cultural and environmental role that repair plays through five in-depth essays, before celebrating and profiling 25 artists, curators, menders and re-makers who have rejected the allure of the fast, disposable and easy in favour of the patina of use, the stories of age and the longevity of care and repair.

There will also be an opportunity to hear from Eat Work Art’s Devon Development & Strategy Manager, Kate Pierce, on what Eat Work Art and Nudge Community Builders plans are for the redevelopment of one of Plymouth’s iconic buildings—the Millennium Building.

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