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Thomas Cubbin

Senior Lecturer

The Design and Crafts Steneby Unit
Telephone
+46 31-786 55 64
+46 766-18 55 64
Mail
tom.cubbin@hdk.gu.se
Visiting address
Hemslöjdsvägen 1
66695 Dals Långed
Postal address
Hemslöjdsvägen 1
66695 Dals Långed

About Thomas Cubbin

I am a historian and educator at HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design where I focus on cultural and environmental significance of craft and design at Campus Steneby in Dals Långed, located in the region of Dalsland.

As an academic I am somewhat of a generalist within the craft and design studies , as I have worked in a wide range of educational contexts which always invite new ways of thinking about method and content. Teaching and research are equally important to me, and teaching is often the most rewarding way to test ideas. While some of what I think about ends up as writing and articles and some of it manifests in lectures, and quite a lot of it doesn't leave much trace at all. Some of it informs my students' work, but in ways I never expected. Some particular interests of mine include work on contemporary critical uses of folklore in craft, rural design cultures, amateur craft.

In the past years I have worked together with Dr. Karin Peterson to launch a new BFA called Crafting Futures which is a multi-material craft programme. From craft, we take the informality of learning, oral transmission, embodied knowledge, and exploration through deep knowledge of materials and techniques. It is about being in a community that can create its own culture and is driven by human needs to survive and create. Time and commitment to developing skill is vital.

In my previous roles, I worked closely with education in the BA and MA programmes in the Design Unit at HDK-Valand in Gothenburg, where I was responsible for introducing design studies to the curriculum. I have also worked as Head of Unit at HDK-Valand Campus Steneby. I holds a PhD from the University of Sheffield and an MA in History of Design from the Royal Collage of Art in London, where I  have also worked as a visiting lecturer in Critical and Historical Studies.

My background as a researcher is in Russian and Soviet history, and my book Soviet Critical Design (Bloomsbury, 2019) charts the development artistic design research in the late Soviet Union, often as a semi-dissident activity. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I was seeking knowledge about how artistic practice can create small bubbles of freedom within large beurocratic systems.

I am a member of the PARSE working group, and am a board member of Halmens Hus, Sweden’s museum for straw craft.

In my spare time I fix old houses, make low-quality musical instruments and play in the folk music duo Flank and Klang.