Re-Activating Craft, MA Material Futures: Central Saint Martins (October to December 2024). This is a challenge of discovery, connoisseurship, intervention and refinement. Explore and discover this craft from the inside out. Experience and explore skills and practices which you are not familiar with but which require a high level of training and refinement. Become a connoisseur of this craft. Infiltrate its world and become at one with its materials, experts and experiences. Engage with, visit, learn from and collaborate with expert crafters. Create an intervention that disrupts the traditional craft systems, that may change, challenge, revive, restore, rethink or develop this craft. Re-Activating Craft, MA Material Futures: Central Saint Martins (October to December 2024). This is a challenge of discovery, connoisseurship, intervention and refinement. Explore and discover this craft from the inside out. Experience and explore skills and practices which you are not familiar with but which require a high level of training and refinement. Become a connoisseur of this craft. Infiltrate its world and become at one with its materials, experts and experiences. Engage with, visit, learn from and collaborate with expert crafters. Create an intervention that disrupts the traditional craft systems, that may change, challenge, revive, restore, rethink or develop this craft. Re-Activating Craft, MA Material Futures: Central Saint Martins (October to December 2024). This is a challenge of discovery, connoisseurship, intervention and refinement. Explore and discover this craft from the inside out. Experience and explore skills and practices which you are not familiar with but which require a high level of training and refinement. Become a connoisseur of this craft. Infiltrate its world and become at one with its materials, experts and experiences. Engage with, visit, learn from and collaborate with expert crafters. Create an intervention that disrupts the traditional craft systems, that may change, challenge, revive, restore, rethink or develop this craft. Re-Activating Craft, MA Material Futures: Central Saint Martins (October to December 2024). This is a challenge of discovery, connoisseurship, intervention and refinement. Explore and discover this craft from the inside out. Experience and explore skills and practices which you are not familiar with but which require a high level of training and refinement. Become a connoisseur of this craft. Infiltrate its world and become at one with its materials, experts and experiences. Engage with, visit, learn from and collaborate with expert crafters. Create an intervention that disrupts the traditional craft systems, that may change, challenge, revive, restore, rethink or develop this craft. Re-Activating Craft, MA Material Futures: Central Saint Martins (October to December 2024). This is a challenge of discovery, connoisseurship, intervention and refinement. Explore and discover this craft from the inside out. Experience and explore skills and practices which you are not familiar with but which require a high level of training and refinement. Become a connoisseur of this craft. Infiltrate its world and become at one with its materials, experts and experiences. Engage with, visit, learn from and collaborate with expert crafters. Create an intervention that disrupts the traditional craft systems, that may change, challenge, revive, restore, rethink or develop this craft. Re-Activating Craft, MA Material Futures: Central Saint Martins (October to December 2024). This is a challenge of discovery, connoisseurship, intervention and refinement. Explore and discover this craft from the inside out. Experience and explore skills and practices which you are not familiar with but which require a high level of training and refinement. Become a connoisseur of this craft. Infiltrate its world and become at one with its materials, experts and experiences. Engage with, visit, learn from and collaborate with expert crafters. Create an intervention that disrupts the traditional craft systems, that may change, challenge, revive, restore, rethink or develop this craft.
The Clapper
The Clapper is a conceptual instrument designed to disrupt, challenge, and rethink the traditional craft of bell founding: the art of casting and tuning bells. Over the years, the market and enthusiasm for bell-making have dwindled due to various factors, including the decline in religious influence, the rise of technological alternatives, the preservation of existing bells, high production costs, and environmental concerns. This decline led me to question whether reviving this craft was still relevant or meaningful.
Initially, I intended to create a new bell but struggled to justify its purpose in 2024. However, I recognized one essential aspect of bells worth preserving: their ability to unify and bring communities together. Bells generate collective movement and awareness, resonating with symbolic and emotional power. I wanted to reimagine the bell in a symbolic way, proposing transitional or permanent uses for the abandoned Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London (unused since 2017) to enrich the neighborhood’s creative community. While this concept felt compelling, I found it challenging to materialize at the project’s intended scale.
After reflecting on my motivations and sharing my ideas, I pivoted toward a more exciting and hands-on approach. Instead of creating a traditional bell, I designed a tool capable of recording and converting physical materials into sound. In this concept, the object itself is not a bell, the materials become the bell. The instrument acts as a metaphorical clapper, striking materials to produce sound and allowing the symbolism of bells to evolve, existing anywhere and in any form within the built environment.
The tool consists of a metal-cast wheel (an homage to the bell-founding process) crafted from gilding metal with the phrase “Listen to the materials” engraved on its surface. The steel handle is welded together, and a contact microphone embedded within the device captures the vibrations and impacts of the wheel on various materials. The resulting audio forms an abstract collection of sounds, translating the textures of materials into an auditory experience. Through this device, the spirit of the bell is preserved and transformed, offering a new way to connect with our surroundings.
I attached a GoPro camera to the instrument to record the sounds of various materials found around King’s Cross in London. These materials included wood, brick pavement, cement, granite, polished steel, corten steel, stone, ceramics, vinyl, glass, aluminum, terrazzo, grass, and more.
© Antoine Léger 2025