Close
It is Good to Meet You
About the project
Puppet designer Tony and roboticist Azadeh have come together to explore how people from different backgrounds meet, greet, and bond through the creation of Chippie - a remarkable seven-foot puppet. What are the behavioural and bodily cues that help us to connect face-to-face? What are the social structures that help or hinder these connections? The project draws inspiration from the experiences of residents of the Carpenters Estate, a community near Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park who have faced significant disruption and transformation since the Olympics, with more redevelopment still to come.
Meet the collaborators
Tony Mason is a designer and fabricator of puppets and kinetic sculpture. He has an ongoing interest in relationships between living creatures and objects and what it means for a thing to be alive. His creations seek to express identity and narrative in spectacles that are often large-scale, and can be worn, driven, and manipulated.
Dr Azadeh Shariati’s research focuses on soft robotics and haptics, exploring safer human-robot interactions using soft materials. Her work also includes social robotics in healthcare engineering. She is currently an associate lecturer at UCL Mechanical Engineering, specializing in dynamics and control, and contributing to both innovative research and education.
Events
It is Good to Meet You: Puppet Procession
Date: Thursday 13th March 2025
Time: 3pm - 5pm
Location: The Dovetail Community Centre to UCL East Marshgate
Come and meet our friendly and interactive giant puppet. Chippie will be walking from the Dovetail Community Centre, Carpenters Estate to UCL East Marshgate, greeting all passers-by in a celebration of connection and neighbourly spirit.
Chippie will be following the route shown on the map below.
