08 Misfits: Outfitting
RES - TEA
DATE: 2021
Images of work by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee architecture students, including:
Alessandra Amartua
Emma Bittner
Bryce Neild
Samuel Quarrie
Jordan Walia
Images of work by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee architecture students, including:
Alessandra Amartua
Emma Bittner
Bryce Neild
Samuel Quarrie
Jordan Walia
“Fitting and misfitting denote an encounter in which two things come together in either harmony or disjunction. When the shape and substance of these two things correspond in their union, they fit. A misfit, conversely, describes an incongruent relationship between two things: a square peg in a round hole. The problem with a misfit, then, inheres not in either of the two things but rather in their juxtaposition, the awkward attempt to fit them together. When the spatial and temporal context shifts, so does the fit, and with it meanings and consequences. Misfit emphasizes context over essence, relation over isolation. Misfits are inherently unstable rather than fixed. The utility of the concept of misfit is that it definitively lodges injustice and discrimination in the materiality of the world more than in social attitudes or representational practices, even while it recognizes their mutually constituting entanglement.”
—Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
“The term misfits takes on dual notions; a misfit is one who looks at life differently. Many however, are made into misfits because life looks at them differently. The term misfits can be cross-generational, and crosses concepts of gender or culture simply by a desire for transparency, a desire to see another’s point of view. Synonyms: outsider, falcon.”
—Michaela Coel
In Misfits, an undergraduate/graduate elective seminar taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, students learn to take a critical eye to multivalent and on-going relationship-forming interactions between human bodies and the environments and objects that surround them. Learning from the discipline of critical access studies and specifically the work of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, the notion of “misfitting” demands that no body can be a misfit, but rather, bodies are faced with misfitting relationships with their surroundings, which puts the onus back onto our built world to do more.
Students each worked to produce a single object that explored multiple “fittings” between subjects and environments. The objects - at the scale of a piece of furniture - were designed to accommodate multiple narratives and uses that were curated and designed by each student based on inputs from their own bodies, as well as those of roommates, friends, and strangers.
Working against the process of ground-up bespoke design as the solution to issues of access, student projects all began with a found object, acquired very cheaply or for free from either Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, a yard sale, or from a site of discard. Embracing processes of repairing, editing, adding, and subtracting, students transformed the pieces over the course of several weeks using additional found and everyday objects. The role and impact of final objects ranges from mediator, to interloper, to aide, to accomplice, to agitator, as each produces various fits and misfits with the people and places that come into contact with it.
—Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
“The term misfits takes on dual notions; a misfit is one who looks at life differently. Many however, are made into misfits because life looks at them differently. The term misfits can be cross-generational, and crosses concepts of gender or culture simply by a desire for transparency, a desire to see another’s point of view. Synonyms: outsider, falcon.”
—Michaela Coel
In Misfits, an undergraduate/graduate elective seminar taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, students learn to take a critical eye to multivalent and on-going relationship-forming interactions between human bodies and the environments and objects that surround them. Learning from the discipline of critical access studies and specifically the work of Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, the notion of “misfitting” demands that no body can be a misfit, but rather, bodies are faced with misfitting relationships with their surroundings, which puts the onus back onto our built world to do more.
Students each worked to produce a single object that explored multiple “fittings” between subjects and environments. The objects - at the scale of a piece of furniture - were designed to accommodate multiple narratives and uses that were curated and designed by each student based on inputs from their own bodies, as well as those of roommates, friends, and strangers.
Working against the process of ground-up bespoke design as the solution to issues of access, student projects all began with a found object, acquired very cheaply or for free from either Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, a yard sale, or from a site of discard. Embracing processes of repairing, editing, adding, and subtracting, students transformed the pieces over the course of several weeks using additional found and everyday objects. The role and impact of final objects ranges from mediator, to interloper, to aide, to accomplice, to agitator, as each produces various fits and misfits with the people and places that come into contact with it.