Unit 2: Contemporary craft

 

Duration: ~ 1 hour per section. 6 sections. Reading + video-watching + follow-up activities. Final activity: 1.5 hours.

 

Intro:

Contemporary craft is a wide-encompassing term that covers many forms of modern-day applications of technical know-how in the production of both goods in a domestic setting, but also in the art context. There is a sense of craft “reclamation” that happened after the industrial revolution when people no longer needed to have the technical capabilities to create their own items, but instead chose to do it because of its aesthetic, social, and emotional value. Poser (2008: 81) states that, “Reclaiming craft often involves learning skills that vanished as cheap machine-made, mass produced, and ultimately disposable items have proliferated.”

 

At the risk of being lost in the age of mass-production and easy consumption of cheaply-made products, traditional crafting methodologies have persisted by evolving alongside the needs of their makers. This unit examines the important social, economic, ecological, cultural, and practical functions that contemporary crafting practices serve and the maker communities that are born from these needs. It will include reference to popular community-based maker movements such as Craftivism and Maker Spaces, as well as the utilization of social media platforms, to highlight the power of grassroots movements for sustaining craft practices and for developing open innovation projects. We’ll be focusing on a handful of in-person case studies specific to Estonia, with wider-reaching online examples as well.

 

 

  • 2.1. Key Concepts

    • 2.1.1. Platforms for Creativity and Designing for Wide Walls
    • 2.1.2. The Workshop
    • 2.1.3. DIY Culture and Craftivism or “Craft Activism”
  • 2.2 Case Studies

    • 2.2.1. Maker Spaces and the Maker Movement
    • 2.2.2. Creative Multi-functional Hubs
    • 2.2.3. Online Platforms for Creativity

 

2.1. Key Concepts:

 

2.1.1. Platforms for Creativity and Designing for Wide Walls

 

Professor of Learning Research at MIT Media Lab Mitchel Resnick’s concept of designing for “low floors, high ceilings, and wide walls” operates as the foundation of this unit. It’s a concept that permeates the effectiveness of all community spaces and creative platforms. When designing platforms for creativity that are accessible to diverse groups of learners, there must be ample open-ended projects that are flexible enough to accommodate different skill and interest levels.

 

Resnick uses this concept of designing for wide walls to inform his Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab. This approach to education emphasizes a circular path through the stages of: Imagine, Create, Play, Share, Reflect, and back to Imagine. This pathway through the learning process serves to enhance the development of creative-thinking skills for people of all ages and is crucial when developing open-innovation projects. During a workshop Resnick completed with 12 year olds for designing small programmable devices, the 12 year olds offered these tips:

 

  • Start simple
  • Work on things that you like
  • If you have no clue what to do, fiddle around
  • Don’t be afraid to experiment
  • Find a friend to work with, share ideas!
  • It’s OK to copy stuff (to give you an idea)
  • Keep your ideas in a sketch book
  • Build, take apart, rebuild
  • Lots of things can go wrong, stick with it

 

These tips provide the backbone for approaching creative projects and are applicable no matter the age of the learner. Consider how you can integrate these into your journaling, the creation of your zine at the end of the module, and for the creation of future open-innovation projects.

 

 

Designing for Wide Walls: https://mres.medium.com/designing-for-wide-walls-323bdb4e7277

 

Lifelong Kindergarten: https://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/CC2007-handout.pdf

 

David Gauntlett’s Ted Talk about building platforms for creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in2G1Rqat5A

 

Further reading:

 

Gauntlett, David. 2018. Making is Connecting. Cambridge: Polity Press.

 

2.1.2. The Workshop

 

The idea of the “workshop” is both a physical space, as well as a structure of relationships. In his book, “The Craftsman”, Richard Sennett states that

 

“Workshops present and past have glued people together through work rituals, whether these be a shared cup of tea or the urban parade; through mentoring, whether the formal surrogate parenting of medieval times or informal advising on the worksite; through face-to-face sharing of information” (Sennett 2008: 73).

 

This type of face-to-face in-person interaction is one of the reasons that collaborative maker spaces are so impactful. The communal, collective atmosphere of the workshop serves the dual purpose of both a setting for formal training as well as informal knowledge-sharing. Innovative ideas are often borne of serendipitous interactions; where the combination of time, place, and people creates a perfect storm of inspiration. This is why it is impossible to replace these in-person work hubs – where people are connecting in the same place during regular meetings. And, in-fact, is exactly why they are a crucial aspect of community resiliency.

 

Face-to-face interaction was hindered during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this lack of in-person connection was helped by online video calling tools such as Zoom. The pandemic-induced digital transition was easier for some hobbyist crafting communities than others. Already-communal crafts such as knitting more easily made their way online during the pandemic – which led to a level of resiliency of their members that other communities might not have had. While losing out on some of the benefits of emotional intimacy only gained from direct interaction with physical body-language and other non-verbal cues, the digital workshop can fill the gap, and even enhance communication, in many ways. Online video calling tools provide the benefit of seeing others’ faces in real time and doing work in a shared virtual space. They also serve the benefit of connecting people more globally, in a way that pre-pandemic crafting communities might not have had the impetus to do otherwise. Creative communities now have the opportunity to envision how digital services like video calling, live-streams, and video content can augment in-person interaction instead of their early-pandemic status of full-replacement.

 

Knitting in the times of COVID:

https://www.interweave.com/article/knitting/knitting-in-time-of-covid/

 

Further reading:

 

Sennett, Richard. 2008. The Craftsman. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 

2.1.3. DIY Culture and Craftivism or “Craft Activism”

 

The notion of “craftivism” is closely tied to modern day crafting practices. Craftivism is a term coined by writer and crafter Betsy Greer to talk about the intersections between craft and activism. The DIY movement, repair culture, and eco-conscious handmade products, are all examples of activism through craft, as they challenge the status quo. Many contemporary makers eschew the idea of mass-manufactured cheap items, and instead opt for a slower creation process, using sustainable or recycled materials. There are many examples of what can be considered craftivism, but Greer defines it as, “The very essence of craftivism lies in creating something that gets people to ask questions; we invite others to join a conversation about the social and political intent of our creations” (Greer 2014: 8-9).

 

Intro to Craftivism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoyqW9qpzgU

 

Examples of Craftivism:

 

Yarn bombing:

 

Yarn bombing – attaching knitted or crocheted items to trees and structures in public places – is one of the more recognizable forms of craftivism. Magda Sayeg, the textile artist credited with starting the movement in 2005, says her reason behind starting to do this was, “All I wanted to see was something warm and fuzzy and human-like on the cold, steel, gray facade that I looked at everyday.” There was no larger political statement attached to this, but, the act of adding this type of “yarn graffiti” without permission to public spaces, was a way of asserting hummanness, and even a symbol of traditional feminine domesticity, into the sterile urban environment – and thus, inherently an act of activism. Since 2005, yarn bombers have covered urban structures all over the world. As Magda says in her Ted Talk,

 

“Yarn bombing was also growing. And that experience showed me the hidden power of this craft and showed me that there was this common language I had with the rest of the world. It was through this granny hobby — this unassuming hobby — that I found commonality with people that I never thought I’d have a connection with.”

 

What is Yarn Bombing: https://www.castawayyarnshop.com/blogs/blog/what-is-yarn-bombing/

 

Magda Sayeg’s Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/magda_sayeg_how_yarn_bombing_grew_into_a_worldwide_movement

 

Making camo nets for Ukraine

Since the beginning of the 2022 war in Ukraine, groups across Europe have been gathering to create camouflage netting for concealing soldiers and equipment. These efforts are grassroots initiatives where people in a community join together to tie fabric scraps to fishing nets. These are usually pop-up events that are organized by private citizens or local community groups and use donated fabric and nets. This is an example of handwork being done for a social purpose, where timeliness and the individual want to contribute can create a significant impact. These types of craftivist activities are important because they provide a way for civilians, both locally and abroad, to provide a tangible contribution for the war effort in Ukraine. Sending money and goods is also very useful, but the act of joining together with others in one’s local community creates an important sense of strength through a shared contribution.

 

Ukraine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/08/ukraine-military-women-camouflage/

 

Estonia ​​https://news.err.ee/1608549964/gallery-volunteers-make-camouflage-netting-for-ukraine

 

UK https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-63027659

 

Zines and Zinemaking

Zines (derived from “magazine”), are defined basically as self-published works that can be made with a pen and paper at their most basic, ranging to letterpress, risograph printed, screen printed, etc. They are publications made by amateurs and enthusiasts for other amateurs and enthusiasts. They are a way for people to express their own, often niche or not mainstream ideas, and to share this knowledge with others who are interested. They are generally not made with profit in mind, and are one of the most popular and longstanding ways that people in various subcultures have been able to make their voice heard – Thomas Paine’s booklet “Common Sense”, published during the American Revolution in the 18th century, has been described as one of the originators of self-publishing as an act of resistance. The process of zine-making as well as the zines themself enable the maker to eschew ideas of top-down media consumption and position the maker as agents of change.

 

What is a Zine? https://salfordzinelibrary.co.uk/about-us/whats-a-zine/

 

Embodied Knowledge and the Process of Creative Empowerment through the Art and Craft of Zine Making https://dspace.ut.ee/handle/10062/72981

 

Online zine: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/a8287113d8.html

 

One-page-zine how-to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9aPn8P11oo

 

List of Zine Distributors (great place to find zine examples): https://guides.douglascollege.ca/zines/distros

 

Further reading:

 

Greer, Betsy. 2014. Craftivism: The Art of Craft and Activism. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press

 

Piepmeier, Alison. 2008. “Why Zines Matter: Materiality and the Creation of Embodied Community.” American Periodicals 18, no. 2: 213-238. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41219799

 

Follow-up Activity: You should now reflect on each of the three main concepts covered in this section: Resnick’s designing for wide walls, Sennett’s idea of the workshop, and Betsy Greer’s “craftivism”. Set a timer and spend 10 minutes freewriting about whatever comes to mind – it can be directly related to certain ideas you learned or something completely unrelated. This will help you join your own thoughts with the concepts and see what connections might arise.

 

2.2. Case studies:

 

2.2.1. Makerspaces and the Maker Movement

 

Makerspaces are a crucial asset for communities who are looking to provide opportunities for creativity and make materials accessible for children and adults alike to explore and create innovative projects. Makerspaces.com, a site devoted to providing open-access materials for schools and libraries to create their own makerspaces, describes them as, “a collaborative work space inside a school, library or separate public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses high tech to no tech tools.”

 

One of the most impactful aspects of a makerspace is its focus on skill-sharing. A knowledge-sharing ethos is inherent to many traditional crafts — with people swapping patterns, techniques, and ideas. In his book, The Craftsman, Sociologist Richard Sennett writes about the success of Linux’s open source software, “The Linux system is a public craft. The underlying software kernel in Linux code is available to anyone” (Sennett 2008, 24). This type of success was available only because of its accessibility and openness of collaborators to share ideas. Within both traditional and contemporary craft methodologies, the focus on openness and sharing knowledge is what allows intangible cultural heritage to both survive and inform current innovations – and makerspaces are a platform where this sharing can happen.

 

Paranduskelder – NGO, Tartu, Estonia Makerspace/repair center

 

“Paranduskelder wants a world that is wholesome and free from the trash. To approach this, we created a place where everyone can acquire the skills and willingness to take the act of repairing the world into their own hands.”

 

Paranduskelder is a multi-functional repair center, makerspace, and educational center within the Aparaaditehas creative factory (more on this below) in Tartu, Estonia. Paranduskelder has been organizing Repair Cafés around Estonia since 2017 and has had a permanent space at Aparaaditehas since 2019. Its goal is to create a more resilient community and emphasize the importance of a circular economy through workshops, events, lectures, and through their low-cost membership-based repair center/makerspace. Paranduskelder draws together artists, engineers, architects, craftspeople, and educators to create a thriving community built on knowledge and material sharing.

 

Co-founder, Jiří Krejčí’s Youtube videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klDrmD3H1E4

 

TYPA – Tartu, Estonia Non-profit printing and paper arts center

 

TYPA is a working printing and paper museum and art education centre in Tartu, Estonia. Founded in 2010 as a private museum, TYPA began as an initiative to save the last remaining printing presses and equipment from printing shops as they closed down. Over the last decade, it has grown into a multi-functional creative space that operates both as a traditional museum with archives and exhibitions, but also as a community arts center that hosts workshops, school groups, foreign artists in residence, and sells notebooks and stationery made from recycled books. In addition, TYPA has a sister organization, Fahrenheit 451, also located in Aparaaditehas, that sells second-hand donated books. TYPA’s efforts are unique in that they encompass a variety of community arts and cultural heritage preservation pursuits that are rooted in environmental sustainability and create reciprocal relationships within both their local community and a wider community of foreign artists and volunteers. It is an example of how a creative hub can both address the needs of their immediate location, as well as access the continuity and collaborative power of a more global creative network.

 

More on TYPA: https://typa.ee/en/typa-centre/history-and-objectives/

 

Follow-up activity – Are there any makerspaces in your city? If there are, pick one and attend an event in their space. If not, look at one of the online examples below and do the same exercise, but note observations in your journal about the online tools and resources: Write down your experience and what you saw. Who uses this space, what are people doing here? How did you feel when you were in this environment? Is it something you would do again?

More examples:

 

2.2.2. Creative Multi-functional Hubs:

 

Aparaaditehas – Tartu, Estonia

 

Aparaaditehas is a multi-functional “creative factory” in an old Soviet-era factory complex in Tartu, Estonia. Aparaaditehas was originally built as a factory for making submarine parts and refrigeration units in the 1970’s and employed almost 1500 people. Bought in 2006 by a real estate company, the factory was revitalized by a group of artists and entrepreneurs and now houses many different restaurants, stores, artist studios, gallery space, a repair center, and museum. Read more here: www.aparaaditehas.ee/en

 

6 part series of an interview with Lemmit Kaplinski about Aparaaditehas https://www.culturefighter.eu/centres-factories-incubators-amp-initiatives/how-they-were-set-up/what-is-aparaaditehas Funding/connection to Trans Europe Halles http://teh.net/about-us/

 

Kopli 93 Tallinn, Estonia

 

Kopli 93 is the first Fab City Hub in Estonia, and is part of Centrinno’s 2020-2024 research project that sponsors initiatives around Europe that transform underutilised historic spaces into hubs for manufacturing and creative production. These projects aim to keep citizen contributions at the heart of their efforts, and see this type of community-based revival of historic spaces as part of the modern industrial revolution. Kopli 93 is a cultural center housed in an old abandoned industrial complex in Tallinn, Estonia. In its first two years with the Centrinno project, Kopli 93 has created a community garden, a community apiary, and the first public makerspace in Tallinn. The next goal for Kopli 93 is to become a referent node of the Fab City Hub Network, which aims to, “produce locally but share knowledge, tools and practices globally”.

 

More on Kopli 93: https://centrinno.eu/blog/community-resilience-local-heritage-skillset-in-tallinn/

Video introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdxNZc8pdLc

 

More on Centrinno’s other projects in Europe:

https://centrinno.eu/cities/

 

Follow-up activity – what are creative hubs in your city? Urban gardens, community centers, etc? Where do people gather to create things, to share knowledge, to socialize? Go to one of these hubs and spend an hour writing down what you see. Who uses these spaces, what are people doing here? What do the surroundings look like, are they new, old, made of repurposed materials?

 

2.2.3. Online Platforms for Creativity:

 

The internet provides a place where these types of collaborative relationships within craft can be built on online platforms like Ravelry, Instagram, or even brought on-to-off-line with sites like Meetup. There is a type of knowledge-sharing built into the very nature of many traditional crafts that seems to find an easy home within online community-based collaborative platforms.

 

Internet access plays a key role in the longevity of handicraft, as people are able to connect with others regardless of geographical areas. In her book, Folk Fashion: Understanding Homemade Clothes, Amy Twigger Holroyd writes, “Makers are now connecting and sharing their enthusiasms online, meaning that people who join together in pursuing a niche interest might be spread across the globe” (Twigger Holroyd 27).

 

In his book, Making is Connecting, David Gauntlett talks about the rise of digital platforms, and the myriad ways in which the internet has afforded people the opportunity to connect over shared interests, “Making and sharing things online, engaging with people who (at first) you don’t know anything about, anywhere in the world, can be very rewarding” (Gauntlett 111).

 

Online platforms can be a wonderful place to create community, share work, and learn new skills and techniques. One of the most ubiquitous resources for knitters, crocheters, and other fiber crafters online is a site called Ravelry. Ravelry has three distinct sections for users to engage with: the database of patterns, the personal project notebook for makers and the forums, chats, and groups for people to connect with others. This type of dynamic multi-modal fiber arts resource makes Ravelry an indispensable tool for crafters to both find patterns to use, log their own work, and connect with others. Another aspect that makes this tool compelling is the fact that it’s user-driven. All content is user-uploaded and has a heavy focus on user-engagement. This creates an environment in which tips, tools, and patterns are equally shared, expanded upon and enhanced by the active usership. This type of information is generally not housed anywhere else; things like attributes of particular yarns, notes on correct needle size or gauge for patterns, and feedback from knitters on patterns are not things that would be found on a yarn purchasing site, or even on pattern pages for most knitwear designers. The crowd-sourced information that Ravelry supports, is what makes it one of the best resources (if not the best) for keeping the spirit of sharing fiber arts knowledge alive. It emphasizes that sustaining an active community of members is possibly the most important aspect of safeguarding intangible fiber arts heritage.

 

By and large, those who benefit from the knowledge sharing and collaboration of online craft communities are those who are already practitioners of a craft. For this audience, these platforms can be used to share ideas, learn from one another across the world, and promote their work.

 

For those who have not yet been exposed to a particular craft, or for young learners, already accessible online platforms are a great place to begin engaging. Platforms like Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook, and even TikTok are places where young people are already interacting, and thus an easy-in to attract viewership to craft content — especially if people see these forms of making as “cool”. This sort of coolness-informed attraction to craft is already apparent in the rise of DIY culture and trends like “cottagecore” (a Gen-Z internet subculture). If traditional craft practitioners can latch on to these cultural phenomenons and supplement them with educational content and access to resources, there is increased potential for the longevity of these crafting methods.

 

Examples of craft education through social media:

 

  • Knitwear designer Mother of Purl utilizes Tik Tok (https://www.tiktok.com/@motherofpurll?lang=en) to share her textile creations and process. Her content blends popular Tik Tok video styles and music with video of her knitting, spinning, or showing off her work. Her mode of sharing is especially useful, because it uses both a platform and style of content that’s already widely popular. She not only makes it accessible, but also makes it look cool.

 

  • Artists like Addie Best (https://www.instagram.com/addiebeststudio/) use Instagram to show their creation process. Addie makes mending techniques accessible and interesting through her sharing of images, videos, and creation of mending kits.

 

  • Historical costumer and sewist Bernadette Banner (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSHtaUm-FjUps090S7crO4Q) uses Youtube to create content that highlights historical sewing techniques, with nods to popular internet aesthetics like “dark academia” and reviews of costumes in popular historical T.V. dramas.

 

Further reading:

 

Gauntlett, David. 2018. Making is Connecting. Cambridge: Polity Press.

 

Holroyd, Amy Twigger. Folk Fashion: Understanding Homemade Clothes. 1st ed. New York, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2017.

 

Follow-up activity – sign up for an account on Ravelry (it’s free) and look around. If you’re already on social media sites like Instagram and TikTok, search for specific craft content by using hashtags. See what you find there. Note in your journal: who is posting about handicrafts? Where are they located? Are they hobbyists or professionals? Who is their audience?

 
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