Helen Leigh: “Art shouldn’t be only for those who can afford to make it” #MakerEducation

Harp creature prototyping

Awesome interview with artist and maker Helen Leigh from Signe Häggqvist and Dare Pejić over at Makery.

Can you tell us a bit on how you became a hacker and a maker?

It was kind of by accident, to be honest. Before I was a hacker and a maker I was working in education. Me and a group of friends we ran a consultancy for six years and we campaigned for learning outside of the classroom, for critical thinking to be taught in classrooms, for children to be taught to question things. We made education and material designs, and we had a series of books that were kind of cult hits in the way they approached education. They were very much play-based, very hands-on, and inquisitive. So, somebody from Intel read one of our books and he liked our approach. And they were working on a big project on Internet of things for schools. So they asked if we’d be interested in helping them.

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