This special issue of Studies in Material Thinking focuses on the plurality of tacit, sensory and affective modalities circulating around the objects, practices, and meanings of art and design in that most mysterious of locations, the art school. How can we begin—and theorising—heterogeneous material practices and elusive, embodied forms of knowledge that seem to exceed verbal formulation? The articles in this volume, composed by practitioners and art and design theorists, offer critical insights into the complex, hidden and iterative studio practices of student artists, designers and researchers. They help us think how new works arise from complex constellations of materials, bodies and minds in action. This issue brings to light innovative ways of mapping out somatic knowledge and embodied memory in the context of the art school.