Eli Nixon (they/them) builds portals and gives guided tours to places that don’t yet exist, or exist but call for creative intervention. They are a settler-descended transqueer clown, a cardboard constructionist, and a maker of drawings, puppets, pageants, parades, suitcase theaters, and low-tech public “spectaculah.” Nixon collaborates with activists, schools, mental health and recovery centers, libraries, and the more-than-human world to expand imaginative capacity and build muscles for collective liberation. They’re a Rhode Islander living on Narragansett land.
@ramshackleenterprises | elinixon.com
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Alexandra Bachmayer (she/her) makes art at the intersection of digital, textile, and biological media. Whether developing haptic performance garments, creating dyes from pigment-producing bacteria, or smocking soft biopolymers, her work is grounded in empathy, playfulness, and the ecology of materials. She has produced, published, or presented at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, Natural Dyes in Northeast America, HCII 2019, Make: Wearable Electronics, and Dinacon, and has shown collaborative work at the Centre Pompidou, Ars Electronica, and Mutek. Alex is the technician for the Speculative Life BioLab at the Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology at Concordia University.
lee wilkins (they/them) is an artist and researcher focused on the intersection of the body and technology. They use e-textiles, natural and bio materials, and electromagnetic mechanisms to re-imagine the shape of technology. Their work has been exhibited internationally at the Festival of Curiosity in Dublin, the Lumiere Festival in Toronto, and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, to name a few. wilkins is the Summit Chair for the Open Hardware Summit, which has been held in New York City (2023), Montreal (2024), Edinburgh (2025), and Berlin (2026). As a community leader, wilkins co-organizes the Digital Naturalism Conference, and has served as Program Director for Sketching in Hardware. They received a PhD from the University of Toronto where their research focused on how bodies are integrated within the design of spacecraft. wilkins is part-time faculty at Concordia University, and runs a small non-profit makerspace called Radio Snack.
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In this workshop, we will use handbuilding techniques to explore form through serving dishes. We will investigate rims, handles, and the small decisions that define how a dish functions and feels in use. Demonstrations will cover building with soft slabs, adding coils for volume, and constructing handles that integrate with the form. We will address surface by using resists such as wax and latex to layer glaze and create pattern. Finished work will be fired in Haystack’s salt/soda kiln. All levels welcome.
Courtney Martin (she/her) is a studio potter in the North Carolina mountains.
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Aurora Robson (she/her) is an environmental artist working predominantly with post-consumer and post-industrial plastics. Her practice involves subjugating the negative properties of her medium as a meditative, uplifting form of activism. She has worked with her husband, partner, and FabLab Co-Resident, Marshall Coles, to develop a number of innovative techniques for transforming plastic waste into works of art and design, ranging from fastening, sewing, threading, and weaving to injection and ultrasonic welding and 3D Printing. Robson is also the founding artist of Project Vortex, an international collective of artists working with plastic debris.
@aurorarobson | aurorarobson.com
Marshall Coles (he/him) is an award-winning Director of Photography who studied film at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He has worked as a freelance DP in the film and television industry for over twenty years. He also works extensively with his wife and partner, Aurora Robson, in the creation of large-scale sculptures, installations, and exhibitions for works of art made from post-industrial and post-consumer plastic for display around the world in dozens of museums, galleries, and non-traditional art spaces.
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