Website move

This site is no longer being updated. Please find old blog posts and new at https://amandaperrykessaris.org/approaching-law/

Making unity from and for diversity: The IEL Pop-Up Collection

The IEL Pop Up Collection was designed to ‘make unity from and for diversity’, visibly and tangibly, and with prefigurative spirit.

Workshop: making sociolegal research visible and tangible

We invite you to attend a workshop devoted to reframing your current sociolegal research project using design-based strategies, and in so doing to improve your abilities to explain (ask: how?), to generate (ask: why?) and to speculate (ask: what if?) in relation to it. In this one day hands-on workshop you will make three types …

Showing sociolegal design as work in progress

https://vimeo.com/214063697 Work in progress shows are a standard element of design degrees. Like work in progress sessions in social sciences they offer an opportunity to reflect and take stock. But the visible and tangible features of design shows introduce a several additional and productive dimensions and I discovered when I displayed my work on the theme of 'Making …

Sociolegal model making 8: Pop-Up Museum of Legal Objects

This is the eight in a series of experiments (first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh) investigating how model making can be used in sociolegal research processes. As these experiments have progressed I have come to realise that my intention is to understand how we can, and why we might, make sociolegal research ‘visible and tangible’. This experiment is similar …

Sociolegal model making 7: object-based commentary in a curated space

Sociolegal model making 7: Object-based commentary in a curated setting from Amanda Perry-Kessaris on Vimeo. This is the seventh in a series of experiments (see here for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth) investigating how model making can be used in sociolegal research processes. As these experiments have progressed I have come to realise that my intention is to understand how …

In pursuit of the copper ox-hide ingot

My first encounter with ox-hide ingots was on the cover of a specialist economic history text. Cyprus is home to the largest deposits of copper ore in the Mediterranean region, concentrated around the Trodoos mountains. I came face-to-face with, and became attached to, my  ox-hide ingot during an experiment in object-based brainstorming that I conducted in …

Sociolegal model making 6: place-holding

https://vimeo.com/199899293 This is the sixth in a series of experiments (see the first, second, third, fourth and fifth) investigating how modelling can be used in sociolegal research processes. I am a sociolegal researcher seeking to generate insights that are both theoretically informed and empirically grounded. Almost all my research includes qualitative, semi-structured interviews that are always time consuming and expensive to complete and sometimes awkward. But they are also usually extremely …

Experimenting with open fieldwork

I have been conducting empirical field-based research since 1995 in India, Sri Lanka and Cyprus. In recent years I have been systematically deploying an increasing range of graphic design-based methods as a sociolegal research tool. One result has been that my sociolegal work now produces visible traces, and these are readily shareable via social media. So …

Collaborative making to solve policy problems: lessons for legal research?

The Future Imaginaries series run by the Innovation Insights Hub at the University of the Arts London included a Policy Imaginaries workshop led by Director of the Hub, Lucy Kimbell and Noah Raford of the Museum of the Future in Dubai. The workshop focus was on how the 'future-making practices' used by designers can be deployed in a policy context, using the …