As Mark to Material entered its second iteration at London College of Fashion, I was reminded that action research rarely offers neat conclusions. Instead, it surfaces tensions, questions and confirmations that feel as important as any success. This workshop didn’t replicate the first; it tested the framework within a different institutional context, revealing why this work feels not only relevant, but necessary.
The LCF session reached 24 tutors, and when combined with the 26 participants at CSM, the project engaged 50 secondary school teachers and technicians across two workshops, amplifying the potential impact far beyond the room. Working with educators who shape creative experiences at such a formative stage reaffirmed my belief that process-led, material-based practice has ripple effects. When teachers feel able to loosen control, prioritise play and value making over measuring, those shifts travel directly back into classrooms and young people’s creative confidence.
Yet this second workshop felt markedly different. While the first was loose, exploratory, and surprisingly productive, this iteration felt more contained and cautious. The opening presentation framed creativity through “what tutors are looking for” in prospective students. While well-intentioned, this subtly reintroduced performance and expectation. Participants appeared to complete tasks efficiently rather than inhabit them fully, as though creativity had become something to evidence rather than experience.
This sense of constraint surfaced during the making itself. At several points, when I offered open-ended instructions for mark-making, participants interpreted them in unexpected ways. What I imagined as drawing became collage-making; mark-making shifted into fabric construction; yarn-making emerged where sketching had been suggested. Rather than seeing this as misunderstanding, I found it revealing. It highlighted how interpretive creative instruction is and how participants gravitate towards materials and processes that feel intuitive or safe. This slippage between intention and outcome reinforced a core premise of my research: creative processes are non-linear and meaning is co-produced rather than delivered.
The facilitation dynamic also shifted. My co-facilitator delivered the presentation, while I led the workshop activities. I had hoped this division would allow me to observe more, but instead I felt an unexpected pressure to perform and justify my approach. This was unsettling, particularly given that Mark to Material was conceived as a response to precisely this pressure. It revealed how easily institutional hierarchies and expectations can resurface, even within spaces designed to resist them.
There was also a negotiation around space and structure. I advocated for an inclusive, U-shaped seating arrangement to support dialogue and visibility, while a more conventional table layout was initially proposed. Choosing the U-shape felt important, even if it introduced chaos and reduced my sense of control. Ironically, despite this perceived disorder, I ultimately held more control than in the first workshop and felt less prepared as a result. This contradiction became data, in that structure can both enable and constrain, depending on how it is held.
What remained consistent was the value participants took from the session. Teachers spoke again about freedom, adaptability and the relief of working without outcome-driven pressure. Many reflected on the constraints of time, timetabling, and assessment in their own settings. One comment lingered with me: that students increasingly view architecture as the “acceptable” creative path, revealing anxieties around what is now deemed valuable in the arts.
This reinforces a central motivation of my research: the importance of material making in an increasingly digital, outcome-focused creative culture. Sketching, stitching, cutting, and marking are not nostalgic acts; they are ways of thinking. Losing that connection risks narrowing creativity into something slick, strategic and exclusionary.
Despite its challenges, this second iteration strengthened my conviction. The workshop surfaced crucial insights about power, expectation, and interpretation. Mark to Material continues to evolve not as a fixed model, but as a pedagogical stance, one that insists on making, play and process as acts of resistance.
Fig 1 -Collaging, Mark making experiments
Fig 2 up-cycled ‘waste’ from CSM textiles department
Fig 3 “Yarn’ making with waste materials
Fig 4 Collaging
Fig 5 Fabric making
Fig 6&7
Fig 1-7 [R, Taylor], (08/12/2025) “From mark to material: explorations in experimental textiles delivered by Romany Taylor with CSM& LCF Outreach 2025“