Public Masterclass: The Materiality of Wax (Morning)

Dis­cov­er the trans­form­at­ive pos­sib­il­it­ies of beeswax with inter­dis­cip­lin­ary design­er Yesenia Thibault-Picazo.

Exper­i­ment with paper, fab­ric and a vari­ety of found mater­i­als, using mol­ten wax to turn soft, flex­ible forms into beau­ti­fully sol­id shapes. Cre­ate hand-dipped candles and explore the unique prop­er­ties of beeswax, incor­por­at­ing a palette of col­our pig­ments, tex­tures and nat­ur­al and syn­thet­ic mater­i­als to your work. 

This work­shop will begin with a tour of the waxes in our Mater­i­als Lib­rary, led by head of our Mater­i­als Lib­rary, Dr Sarah Wilkes. 

Yesenia Thibault-Picazo is an inter­dis­cip­lin­ary design­er based in East Lon­don, whose prac­tice explores the nar­rat­ive and eco­lo­gic­al poten­tial of mater­i­als. Yesenia uses design to engage people with con­tem­por­ary envir­on­ment­al ques­tions, focus­ing on research-led pro­jects that merge inquiry with tra­di­tion­al craft and embod­ied making. 

Image cour­tesy of Yesenia Thibault-Picazo. 

Import­ant inform­a­tion about our bal­lot sys­tem for this event:

We are using a ran­dom­ised bal­lot sys­tem for this event. 

Our bal­lot will go live on Monday 28^th Septem­ber at 05:00. To be in with a chance of join­ing us, select as many mas­ter­classes as you are inter­ested in attend­ing and sub­mit your entry before Sunday 11^th Octo­ber at 23:59. Please note: it makes no dif­fer­ence when you sub­mit your entry; enter­ing early does not increase your chances of secur­ing a space. All places will be offered at random.

If suc­cess­ful, you will be emailed a link to book a space on one mas­ter­class from Monday 12^th Octo­ber 2026. Suc­cess­ful applic­ants will have 24 hours to book their slot; how­ever, if you do not book with­in 24 hours, your place will be offered to someone else. Even if you have selec­ted mul­tiple mas­ter­classes on your sub­mis­sion, you will only be able to book one mas­ter­class. This mas­ter­class will be pre-chosen for you at ran­dom from your selection. 

If you are also inter­ested in attend­ing our research talk and/​or Mater­i­als Lib­rary tour, you will be able to book this dir­ectly from our web­site on Monday 28^th Septem­ber at 5:00. Attend­ing these ses­sions does not affect your chances of gain­ing a slot on a mas­ter­class, and will not count towards your one mas­ter­class booking.

Once all tick­ets are fully booked by the bal­lot win­ners, we will noti­fy every­one who signed up and offer them the oppor­tun­ity to join our wait­ing list for last-minute dropouts.

This mas­ter­class is suit­able for ages 18+. 

Import­ant inform­a­tion about our bal­lot sys­tem for this event:

We are using a ran­dom­ised bal­lot sys­tem for this event. 

Our bal­lot will go live on Monday 28^th Septem­ber at 05:00. To be in with a chance of join­ing us, select as many mas­ter­classes as you are inter­ested in attend­ing and sub­mit your entry before Sunday 11^th Octo­ber at 23:59. Please note: it makes no dif­fer­ence when you sub­mit your entry; enter­ing early does not increase your chances of secur­ing a space. All places will be offered at random.

If suc­cess­ful, you will be emailed a link to book a space on one mas­ter­class from Monday 12^th Octo­ber 2026. Suc­cess­ful applic­ants will have 24 hours to book their slot; how­ever, if you do not book with­in 24 hours, your place will be offered to someone else. Even if you have selec­ted mul­tiple mas­ter­classes on your sub­mis­sion, you will only be able to book one mas­ter­class. This mas­ter­class will be pre-chosen for you at ran­dom from your selection. 

If you are also inter­ested in attend­ing our research talk and/​or Mater­i­als Lib­rary tour, you will be able to book this dir­ectly from our web­site on Monday 28^th Septem­ber at 5:00. Attend­ing these ses­sions does not affect your chances of gain­ing a slot on a mas­ter­class, and will not count towards your one mas­ter­class booking.

Once all tick­ets are fully booked by the bal­lot win­ners, we will noti­fy every­one who signed up and offer them the oppor­tun­ity to join our wait­ing list for last-minute dropouts.

Every­one at UCL is wel­come in our spaces. We strive to make all of our pro­cesses access­ible, includ­ing attend­ing our events and work­shops, and using our web­site and book­ing sys­tems. Please mes­sage us if you have any ques­tions or require­ments, or need assist­ance using our plat­forms. We’ll be happy to help.

We’re always inter­ested in feed­back to help us improve access to our activ­it­ies. Please con­tact events@​instituteofmaking.​org.​uk if you’d like to chat.