How can we move from being passive consumers to active makers of the things around us?
Who gets to be a maker — and who decides what an object is for?
Can we move beyond the intended functions allocated by designers and manufacturers we are dependent on?
Makers in Progress is a series of workshops that redirects focus from finished objects toward prototyping and experimenting collectively.
Participants work with disassembled bicycle parts and simple tools such as screwdrivers, handsaws, hot glue guns, rope, duct tape, and tie wraps to negotiate what individual parts could become. The workshops offer a space to discover what it means to be a maker, and the resulting objects are traces of that process: imperfect, one-of-a-kind, and not always immediately clear in their function.
The bicycle, dominant in everyday Dutch life and open in its physical structure, became my case study. Through interviews, hands-on disassembly, and visits to communal repair spaces, I explored different levels of user agency: the degree to which people claim ownership over an object, from using and repairing to disassembling and reimagining.
The key insight: if we see an object as a whole, we remain users. If we see it as a collection of parts, we become makers.
In my workshops, people gathered out of curiosity and a willingness to experiment. Participants shared an interest in making but would not necessarily cross paths in everyday life. Over time, different kinds of knowledge came together through the shared act of making — creating a space where people take care of each other, both practically and socially, and where autonomy, communal care, and shared self-sufficiency can grow.
Working with what already exists using DIY methods, we practised making in community as a response to consumption as a solitary habit.
