Kintsugi as a Design tool - artifact, emptiness and sustainability.
Creators: name: Gonçalves, Tiago José Da Mota Cerveira Nazulino
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2019
Subjects: Design for Sustainability
Design Thinking
Kintsugi
Emptiness
Artifact

description: Emptiness is referred to by most as something that contains nothing (or only air), unpopulated, vacant, uninhabited. By the other hand the artifact, whatever it is, is something that exists, physical matter, palpable and visible that was created by men’s hand with a purpose, a function, at a first glance in its genesis is an antithesis to what we call “empty” or “emptiness”. In this research the concept of emptiness will be approached not as the absence of something but as a singular entity, something that we know that is present, but not visible where the boundary between the emptiness and the artifact narrows, thus giving origin to a strong presence, which will occupy a space once empty, although it has always existed and whose presence is unchanged. For the Japanese culture, emptiness is of the utmost importance, let’s take the example of the construction of their traditional houses and temples, in which we can observe an elevation relative to the ground in order to create an empty space between the dwelling and the ground. For Supremacist Kazimir Malevich, emptiness was used to create the tremendous onus present in one of his most famous paintings, <em>White square on white </em>(1918); this work can be interpreted as representing a desert, at first sight empty, but, according to the author is full of the absence of all objects. Based on these assumptions, the present research is based on the creation of a methodological tool for Design Thinking with a focus on Design for Sustainability, aimed at Design professionals, researchers and students. For the beaconing and focused approach of the theme in the area of Design, three key concepts will be related, the one of Artifact, in this case in particular considering the objects that inhabit our daily life, the philosophy present in Kintsugi technique, which consists in the art of resurrect a damaged artifact that is “healed” and finally the Emptiness, that is here considered in the emotions and memories contained in the artifacts that through the art of Kintsugi, communicate these new and old memories. Starting from these assumptions will be created an application of these concepts in the form of a Design tool that intends not only to promote the increase of the life cycle of utilitarian objects, but also aims to create more sustainable services. In the particular case of utilitarian objects, it is intended that these even after their apparent “death” may still have a continuity in this way, avoiding the current tendency that promotes the proliferation of programmed obsolescence. This research also intends to develop a reflection on the notion of the product life cycle and to explore possible solutions that encourage the reuse / reinvention of artifacts whose main purpose is compromised by the time / use, thus giving them a new life , and thus attributing to the object characteristics that place it within the scope of Emotional Design (object persona) and at the same time in the field of a production and use of resources in a sustainable and weighted way in which the environmental effort expended in its production is equivalent to its life cycle, thus promoting the updating of its components rather than the production of a new product.