Conference Craziness

So last week I had a bit of conference/workshop craziness... Went to one conference and one talk and a workshop, and then attempted to learn some computer programming skills (to no avail... there were tears). So the conferences I went to were... MADE's Waste Not Want Not - which was an excellent day of talks about using recycled materials! Great talks, many of them went over my head, but its great to know there is something going on in using all of our 'garbage', and to meet other people who are designing based on waste (though in a much more technical way). Then in the evening I went to the RSA's Art's and Ecology talk by Jeremy Deller - Culture in a time of Crisis... which was a great overview on his work. Then I went to Manchester (after a very rushed crit in the morning), for the FEI Conference: Ethics of Fashion or Fashion of Ethics?. A great event for students on the fashion industry and the ethics of labour practices. After careful consideration, I think the people being highly educated on this topic should be the Buyers of the world, not the Designers... so often the Designers have little to no say in the entire manufacturing process, and the buyers do have so much more power in terms of pricing, and confirming of ethical standards. Just a thought. Then I tried to learn Processing at a workshop... yikes, I think I will leave the programming to people who are really good at it... you know who you are :) The picture is from my daily stroll to the DLR, a lovely tree already in bloom. Looks beautiful, but is it time yet?