Meet local designers at V&A Dundee’s Plastic Lab and find out how and why they use materials native to Scotland in their work.

As part of V&A Dundee’s Plastic Lab, Creative Dundee presents Material Matters – a chance to hear from four local designers and makers as they share insights into the materials they use in their creative process. They’ll each reflect on why these materials came to be part of their practice and consider what the future of that material might be.

Despite declined local industry and increased distance from the origins of items we use in our daily lives, creative practitioners have long been at the forefront of developing sustainable practices and innovative processes in the products they make – and for designers in Dundee and Tayside, that includes thoughtfully using materials native to Scotland in their work.

Bring along your lunch and enjoy a series of short talks from jeweller Roslyn Leitch (working with flax), ceramicist Steph Liddle (working with clay), designer and fabricator Aymeric Renoud (working with draff), and weaver Cally Booker (working with wool). We’ll then head into the Plastic Lab to ‘meet the materials’, where you can chat with the designers, hear more about their processes, and explore material samples.

Material Matters takes place in V&A Dundee’s Upper Locke Hall and Plastic Lab on Wed 25 January 2023, 1:00–2:30pm. This is a free, drop-in event and all are welcome.

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Indigenous Materials Library

This event draws from our Indigenous Materials Library, created in collaboration with MaticHub – a creative hub in fellow UNESCO City of Design Cebu, Philippines. Presented as a digital library of materials native to the Tay and wider region, the project aims to enable sustainable and responsible approaches when considering material choices.

Plastic Lab

V&A Dundee’s Plastic Lab invites you to explore the promise and problem of plastic. Housing Precious Plastic recycling machines and hosting a dynamic programme of events, this free interactive space encourages visitors of all ages to learn, question, challenge, and act on some of the most important issues relating to plastic today. From board games to plastic sorting stations and pop-up talks, drop in and explore some of the free things you can see, do, and get involved in.

Plastic: Remaking Our World is the first exhibition co-produced by V&A Dundee, Vitra Design Museum, and maat, Lisbon with curators from V&A South Kensington.