Over the past three years I have been in conversation with many experts in different fields but being expert is the base line. Alongside my work with Imperial College I have also worked on a project for the V&A museum with magician Will Houstoun where we looked at expertise itself by studying some of the fruits of it, the objects in the museum. In discussion Will and I looked at what it takes to be an expert. The starting point with all those that I have met was the same with Will and I, not an exchange of the nuts and bolts of our understanding as many people imagine but the discernment that has evolved with our experience. Will and I talked of the quality in expertise that requires you to be better than you need to be which leads to a level of discernment which is the fruit of our expertise.
It seems to me that after speaking with so many leaders in their field, be they surgeon, craftsperson or performer that this discernment is often best expressed through metaphor. So far I have produced two metaphors for the residency, the Textile Body and the Epiploic Cube.
The image above is of a small piece of lace that I made in order to understand the mind and practice of the lacemakers of the 16th and 17th C. and is part of that research done as an interdisciplinary project with the V&A, Imperial College and the Art Worker's Guild.
