Review of EKSIG 2013: Knowing Inside Out

On 4th and 5th July 2013, Loughborough University’s Design School welcomed 65 delegates from 12 countries to the International Conference 2013 of the DRS Special Interest Group on Experiential Knowledge (EKSIG 2013). Delegates from diverse disciplines travelled from around the world to this small university town in the British Midlands to present their current research and to discuss issues related to the theme of the conference “Knowing Inside Out – Experiential Knowledge, Expertise and Connoisseurship”.

When the planning of the conference began a year ago, the foremost aim of the organising team (Dr Kristina Niedderer, Dr Mark Evans and myself) was to push the discussion of the understanding and role of knowledge in research and professional practice beyond the discipline boundaries. With this aim, we wished to bring together researchers from wide-ranging subjects and have them participating in one conference. We believed that design research would benefit from learning from research in other disciplines and vice versa. The design discourse is no longer confined by the boundaries of discipline. Diversity in subject disciplines embedded in EKSIG 2013 contributed to dynamic and multidimensional discussion at the conference. To focus on knowledge production and professional practice, the organisers found that the issue of expertise and connoisseurship has come to the fore in recent years. Professionals and scholars from many disciplines have attempted to negotiate the tension between the explicit justification required by research and the tacit appreciation and judgment that expertise and connoisseurship entail.

From a great international response with high-standard submissions, the organisers were delighted to include in the conference programme interdisciplinary presentations that stemmed from a variety of disciplines and discipline areas including fine art, applied art/craft, architecture, performance and drama, film, product/industrial design, graphic & communication design, knowledge management, education, philosophy and social sciences. Although from various disciplines, all speakers are experts in their fields who “know inside out” and have the same focus on the conference theme of experiential knowledge, expertise and connoisseurship.

Suggested Citation: Nimkulrat, N. (2013). Review of EKSIG 2013: Knowing Inside Out, Loughborough University, 4-5 July 2013. Design Research Society.