Finally, as may be seen from the image, there were four awards created – one to be presented every second year during the EFRJ conference over the next decade. The four awards were formed from one piece of wood as may be seen from the grain running through them all when viewed together. But, importantly, each is still unique.
All of the people involved in the design and fabrication of the award live in the Shetland Islands in the very north of Scotland or have family connections here. The making of the award, therefore, was relational and rooted in one place. Their fabrication involved four different people in addition to myself. I am deeply grateful to Cecil, Dawn, Keith and Paul of Ocean Kinetics who worked collaboratively with me to produce them. In particular, to Cecil Tait (and his sheepdog!) for creating the wooden part of the award and stand. To Keith Gorman for laser engraving the speech mark and lettering. To Dawn Siegel for engraving the metal stand with the EFRJ logo and name of the award. And to Ocean Kinetics for producing the metal component of the award stands.
Thus, interwoven with the awards is a notion of island-ness, and the specific relationality that island-ness brings. I knew of and now know better each of the makers and companies above through working closely with them on aspects of the award. I still hear about them, see them or bump into them as part of our daily island lives. As a way for the mainlander to fully understand this ‘density of acquaintanceship’ (Freudenberg, 1986, p. 27), Vannini and Taggart (2012, p. 230) invite us to imagine island living through the actions and embodiment of everyday life. For example, ‘Imagine waving at cars driving the opposite direction, regardless of whether you know the driver’. They thus describe island-ness as being defined by the practices of islanders (‘how do you do your island?’) instead of as a ‘representational entity’ and an abstraction. This changes island-ness ‘from a representation inside our heads to a set of tasks’ (Vannini and Taggart, 2012, p. 235). This is why it was so significant for me for the awards to come round full circle and not only be designed and made in an island setting but also to be presented in an island setting - during the 17th international conference of the EFRJ in Sassari, Sardinia. Massive congratulations to Siri Kemeny for being the first recipient.
As with islands, a design and making process is a dialogue that is never static but always changing as new information comes to light and new things are discovered and learned along the way. Much like the restorative process.
As a reflection, in this world of throw away goods, and mass produced objects and furniture, I hope in a small way the creation of the awards challenges how we perceive and understand designed objects. In the past, we would probably all have known the story and person/ people behind each item of furniture or each object in our homes. The maker of them would have been someone we knew or someone who lived nearby. Thus, there was a relationality between ourselves, our objects, and our communities. Consequently, I would also suggest a greater valuing of the designed object because of its embodied relationality. It would also have been more durable. Think about the heirloom pieces of furniture we may have received or the objects we treasure or miss if we lose our homes. For instance ‘consumers have a special appreciation for the human factor in production; handmade products are perceived to be made with love by the craftsperson and even to contain love…’ (Fuchs, Schreier, & Van Osselaer, 2015, p. 110). There is an understanding, therefore, that the handmade = an object characterised by love.