Dr Jason Cleverly

Biography

Dr Jason Cleverly is Course Leader for BA Product and Furniture Design at Chelsea College of Art, previous positions include Course Leader BA (Hons) Contemporary Crafts Falmouth University and Course Leader, Design-Crafts, Staffordshire University.

He develops and designs situational, interpretive installations for museums and art galleries. Designed to create collaboration and participation, these artefacts enhance visitor experiences. Working across a range of materials and embedded technologies, his practice explores a personal preoccupation with interaction and affordance. His PhD thesis is a critical evaluation of this design practice: The Artist-designer: Situating Creative Interaction and Interpretation in the Museum, 2017.

He has published a number of book chapters, journal articles including recently : Discovering the Familiar: Exploring Everyday Practice in the Design of Tools and Artefacts 2025 with Professor Christian Heath (KCL) - the design of everyday objects and artefacts, tools and technologies can prove particularly challenging for design. In this paper, we discuss an undergraduate programme: the Anthropology of the Object developed to encourage and enable students to explore and analyse the complexities that underpin the use and application of everyday tools and implements, the tacit knowledge, reasoning and practice on which participants rely in accomplishing routine actions and activities.


Jason was co-director of the CCW Design School Research Symposium held during London Craft Week 2020. Titled, ‘Blame the tools: crafty robots, well behaved implements and disobedient devices’, the symposium showcased developments in digital tools that define Makers and emerging ways to practice as well as social values and ethical construction methods found in repair and alterations.