Maker Summit @ GRASP 25
(Images from the 2024 maker summit)
We invite all Fablabs and Makerspaces in Denmark (and the Rigsfællesskab and neighbouring countries, if they want) to a Maker Summit 2025 at the GRASP Festival.
Making things and fixing things as a citizen practice has, over the last century, been gradually replaced with an increasing number of ready-made products that are maintained and repaired under warranty by the institutions (often corporations) that manufacture them. As much as this transition has led to wider availability and ease of use, it has also led to a disconnect in which we consume products instead of repairing, customising, and modding them based on our personal preferences and life situations. Put simply, knowing what happens under the hood (of a car or phone, etc.) becomes increasingly specialised and exclusive to the production facilities and the engineers educated in it. We need to reestablish a culture where learning and sharing knowledge about their inner workings are embedded practices of citizenship.
One of the countercurrents to this trend is emerging within the maker movement - an umbrella term for engaging constructively with reclaiming ownership of things, technology, and digital fabrication, in the sense of maintaining the skills, knowledge, tools, and rights to design, develop, repair, upcycle, prolong, and repurpose things and solutions. This (sometimes activist) counter-movement does not occur on the streets as noisy demonstrations, but rather in garages, libraries, Fablabs, hackerspaces, and online forums, where practitioners and citizens share insights, best practices, and knowledge about the inner workings of technology with one another.
As part of GRASP's overarching intention to create space for engaging with and challenging our conditions, and to develop sustainable practices for both our living conditions and the environment, Orange Makers and Fablab RUC (two central spaces for this community in Denmark that are located in Roskilde Municipality) are organising this summit to invite makers in Denmark (and the Rigsfællesskab and neighbouring countries) and all festival participants to meet up and connect. It is an opportunity for grassroots practitioners who are part of Makerspaces and Fablabs in local communities, schools, libraries, and universities to exchange knowledge and discuss how the Maker movement can contribute to solving global problems, as well as learn best practices from one another.
Maker Summit is an opportunity for grassroots practitioners who run Makerspaces and Fablabs in local communities, schools, libraries, and universities to exchange knowledge, discuss how the Maker movement can contribute to solving global problems like climate change, and learn best practices from each other, such as increasing circularity and reducing material waste.
The summit is co-organised by Fablab RUC and Orange Makers as a part of the larger Grasp Festival organised by Roskilde Festival and Roskilde University.
GRASP Festival is 25 - 26 September 2025 at Musicon (with Roskilde Festival, Roskilde Festival High School, Roskilde University, Fablab RUC, Orange Makers, Ragnarock) in Roskilde. GRASP is an exciting, inspiring knowledge festival and conference that mixes research, art, activism and practice. Art, research, activism and practice meet at GRASP. We are looking for new connections that can solve the biggest challenges of our time and create community, creativity and sustainable change.
Maker Summit consists of multiple tracks at the Grasp Festival:
On Thursday, Circular lab and Corolab will have events about sustainable design and entrepreneurship (to be updated).
On Friday, we have the following:
Entangling the Maker-Researcher-
Artist-Activist-Citizen in the Real World
Open call curated by Maja Fagerberg Ranten mranten@ruc.dk, Nicolas Padfield
nicolasp@ruc.dk and Mads Hobye hobye@ruc.dk
In an era of technological complexity and sustainability challenges, the maker must embrace entanglement with larger issues - recognising the deep interconnections between materials, technologies, bodies, politics, ethics, and society. This track explores how future maker-researcher-artist-activist-citizens navigate this complexity through participatory, adaptive, and regenerative practices that foreground agency, sustainability, and critical engagement.
Rather than seeking fixed solutions, the maker's role draws from open-source principles, embodied knowledge, and sensory aesthetics to co-create alternative design futures. We have invited submissions that interrogate and expand the maker's role through themes encouraging critical, participatory, and embodied approaches to making, positioning the maker as an active agent in shaping responsive, adaptive, and entangled design futures. Together, we seek to reimagine making as a site of transformation - where design is not merely a product, but a process of entangled becoming.
- Caitlin Herd (she/her), Research Assistant at Malmö University, MSc in Interaction Design, British: The Maker as Includer: Personal Bias, Empathy & Making Way
- Carl Julius Sälzer (he/him) Graduate Designer, German, Andrei Beretean (he/him) Interaction Designer, Romanian, Adrián Brito (He/Him) Industrial Designer, Spanish, Titapa Ritthichot (she/her) Interaction Designer, Thai, Johan Lundgren (he/him) Interaction Designer, Swedish: More-than-Human Empathy Building: Implementing Sound and Making Strange in the Interactive Sound Installation "Calls by the Sea"
- Marika Hedemyr (she/her). Dr/PhD, Swedish: Sensory engagement with what we leave behind: Politics through aesthetics in a mixed reality walk for cemeteries
- Rikke van Hauen (she/her), Roskilde University MA student, Digital Transformation - Digital Design, RUC, Denmark: Staring Right Back – a critical design project that investigates the invisible complexities behind the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower
Maker Summit and community open soap box
Connect with other Makers and participate in a Pecha Kucha-like soapbox session, where we invite all attending Fablabs and Makerspaces to contribute 5-minute presentations on something your space has solved or excels at, so we can all be inspired by and learn from each other.
The format is informal and open, allowing space for a wide array of makers to share their knowledge, experiences and ideas. During this session, we will mingle and have a Pecha Kucha-like open soapbox session, inviting you to contribute with a 5-minute presentation on something you or a maker space has been engaging with over the last year or so. This way, we can all be inspired by and learn from one another. Topics can be anything from:
- Present your maker space and describe how you approach your projects. What is your maker space/project doing at this moment?
- In what ways did you empower people to have more ownership over materials and technology?
- What creative solution and hack did you invent?
- What new solutions to sustainable practices around technology, society and nature did you come up with?
- How do we contribute to reducing material waste?
- How do we upcycle instead of recycle?
- What are the significant challenges you see that we need to tackle?
- What stories do you have to share that inspire us and prompt reflection on our community?
Please consider preparing a brief presentation for the summit. You will have access to a projector with sound to show a few slides or a video. Please also feel invited to demo things physically and send kits, papers, and examples around. Please notify us (Nicolas Padfield nicolasp@ruc.dk) in advance if you plan to present or coordinate with us during the event, so we can ensure a smooth flow and accommodate as many people as possible.
Already confirmed speakers:
- E-Waste for Edge Computing and DIY IoT Systems: Renato Perotto Machado, University of Tartu, Tartu Hackerspace. Estonia Upcycling.
- Beyond the Screen – Enabling Non-Screen-Based Interaction Design through Pedagogical Tools: Hanne-Louise Johannesen (she/her). Adjunkt and CEO, Danish:
Informal "hygge" and networking in Orange Makerspace.
We have an informal afterparty in Orange Makerspace after Grasp is over.
(Images from the GRASP 2024)
