In the arts, bricolage (French for "DIY" or "do-it-yourself projects") is the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using mixed media. The term bricolage has also been used in many other fields, including anthropology, philosophy, critical theory, education, computer software, and business. Origin Bricolage is a French loanword that means the process of improvisation in a human endeavor. The word is derived from the French verb bricoler ("to tinker"), with the English term DIY ("Do-it-yourself") being the closest equivalent of the contemporary French usage. In both languages, bricolage also denotes any works or products of DIY endeavors. The arts Visual art In art, bricolage is a technique or creative mode, where works are constructed from various materials available or on hand, and is often seen as a characteristic of postmodern art practice. It has been likened to the concept of curating and has also been described as the remixture, reconstruction, and reuse of separate materials or artifacts to produce new meanings and insights. Architecture Bricolage is considered the jumbled effect produced by the close proximity of buildings from different periods and in different architectural styles. It is also a term that is admiringly applied to the architectural work of Le Corbusier, by Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter in their book Collage City, suggesting that he assembled ideas from found objects of the history of architecture. This, in contrast to someone like Mies van der Rohe, whom they called a "hedgehog", for being overly focused on a narrow concept. Academics Anthropology In anthropology, the term has been used in several ways. Most notably, Claude Lévi-Strauss invoked the concept of bricolage to refer to the process that leads to the creation of mythical thought, which "expresses itself by means of a heterogeneous repertoire which, even if extensive, is nevertheless limited. It has to use this repertoire, however, whatever the task in hand because it has nothing else at its disposal". Later, Hervé Varenne and Jill Koyama used the term when explaining the processual aspect of culture, i.e., education Literature In literature, bricolage is affected by intertextuality, the shaping of a text's meanings by reference to other texts. Cultural studies In cultural studies bricolage is used to mean the processes by which people acquire objects from across social divisions to create new cultural identities. In particular, it is