Mending methods: Exploration of mending practices with the aid of design research artefacts. Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.

Assuming that the answers to how to re-discover and re-distribute mending knowledge are concealed in a mundane repair culture of the post-socialist world, where mending has never ceased to be relevant cultural practice, within my PhD study, I proposed to compare existing mending practices in Western (Danish) and Post-socialist (Ukrainian) contexts. The project aim was to understand what set of competencies comprise mending and how these can be enacted. To carry out the in-depth mending exploration, I have selected a group of six participants practising mending regularly (three from Denmark and three from Ukraine) and conducted a series of wardrobe studies and participatory workshops. Firstly, I tried to capture the overall group’s mending experience. Secondly, by utilising a series of design artefacts, I explored how study participants navigated the complexity of the expressive dimension of the mending approach by undertaking design activities of planning and visualising their mending projects.