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- Volume 8, Issue 1, 2017
Craft Research - Volume 8, Issue 1, 2017
Volume 8, Issue 1, 2017
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Best laid plans: Research design and the field in a study of crafts in the Hampi region
More LessAbstractThe article engages with debates on the contemporary practice of ‘traditional’ regional Indian crafts and the disciplinary position of craft at a time when the roles traditionally assigned to academia, patrons (industry and craft non-governmental organizations [NGOs]) and craftspeople are in flux. The author takes the reader through a self-reflexive journey of unlearning based on her experiences as project researcher on an initiative to document traditional crafts in and around the Hampi World Heritage site. What began as an ‘objective’ attempt to present a comprehensive field-based project to document the living craft traditions of a region transformed into a discussion on the politics of research. The example of the Hampi project made it clear to the author that knowledge production is dialogic. ‘Field’, ‘place’ and ‘community’, whether project committee, general public or craftspeople (so-called objects of enquiry), can and do influence the parameters of research design. And this understanding leads to an acceptance on her part that, in turn, ‘researchers’ can only impact the field in a limited way. Consequently, a more useful role for herself and other communities, including craft NGOs, might be that of giving voice to the voiceless, in this instance, craftspeople. More significantly that the views and concerns of craftspeople do matter irrespective of whether they are in accord with the views of individuals, groups or communities that seek to support them, whether craft industry, patrons or researchers.
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Aesthetics of the cultural uncanny
More LessAbstractThis article investigates the ambiguity inherent in an individual’s cultural interpretation of belonging. The research has explored this ambiguity through exploring the viewers’ visual experiences of and responses to a series of experimental craft objects designed to stimulate a state of unhomeliness (termed ‘the aesthetics of the cultural uncanny’). Based on Freud’s essay on the ‘Uncanny’, and Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the ‘cultural uncanny’ and the ‘ambivalence’ of culture in postcolonial societies, the research has examined the feelings of unease evoked when viewing the glass artwork comprising invented typography and forms. The aim is to understand better the relationship of the representation and consumption of objects and the ways in which taste and value contribute to our understanding of our cultural perceptions. The proposition is that inducing a cultural uncanny state and provoking a range of sensitivities and feelings can be used as a powerful tool in artistic practice to promote awareness of stereotyping and its consequences on an individual’s cultural understanding. The research was conducted as part of the author’s Ph.D. study at the University of Edinburgh. It used design probes as well as photographic documentation and a series of interviews conducted with six families and one single participant: four families in South Korea, two families in Britain, and a single participant in the United Kingdom. The interviews provided in-depth understanding, which enabled the analysis and critique of the artworks in relation to the cultural discourse inherent in creative practice.
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The Do-it-Yourself (DiY) craft aesthetic of The Trons − Robot garage band
More LessAbstractThe Trons are a Lo-Fi robot-garage-band constructed from discarded and redundant materials, including Meccano, aluminium foil salvaged from food wrappings and automotive solenoids. The central hub of their operation comes from a computer, made obsolete in the mid-1990s, which feeds signals to flimsy materials whose inefficiencies and ‘errors’ add another layer of processing to the sound. This articles discusses the use of discarded materials as processing agents as a Do-it-Yourself (DiY) craft aesthetic that embraces inefficiency and error as active agents in the production of sound. The indeterminate performance of sound, enacted by the Lo-Fi robotics used in The Trons, is viewed in this paper as an example of a strategy that emerges from a deep engagement by the practitioner with the materials of construction. Through an observation of studio practices and interviews with the maker, material engagement is revealed as a way of generating embodied knowledge, a form of craft practice that situates the DiY practitioner as being entangled within the material environment, and with the work evolving as a shared, reciprocal, exchange between human and material. In this article, function and dysfunctional ‘error’ are part of a spectrum of acceptable outcomes of the DiY craft aesthetic, a process in which practitioners and technological materials form an extended network of agency, displacing the human as the exclusive centre of process.
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Temple cloth to textile craft: The progression of Kalamkari (Vraatapani) of Srikalahasti
Authors: Malini Divakala and Vasantha MuthianAbstractKalamkari, a name that signifies the art of patterning with natural dyes, is popular within the traditional textile domain. While it exists in painted and printed form this paper sets out to inform about the painted style of Kalamkari practised at the temple town of Srikalahasti in Andhra Pradesh. Once a vital part of temple tradition, this art of painted temple cloths has faced challenges to remain existent. The art would have been lost in time but for its timely revival in the year 1957. Following its revival the practice found support from its application on fabrics and was transformed into a craft with a decorative and utilitarian value. This transformation of Kalamkari facilitated its advancement as a prospective sustainable textile craft. The study reflects on its current position within the Indian textile market based on the experiences of the artists who continue to practise and sell their work for use in different contexts of apparel and interior accessories. The research is the result of the adoption of a case study methodology coupled with a quantitative approach through a questionnaire to gauge the extent of current practice at Srikalahasti The article highlights the aesthetic, utilitarian and market-oriented changes that Kalamkari has experienced under the influence of modern urban markets as the Kalamkari artists attempt to remain relevant and sustain this craft tradition.
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Materials design for sustainability: Connecting with local resource flows through the development of flax-based composites
By Faith KaneAbstractThis report-based article uses the example of a practice-led research project, which was undertaken by the author, into the use of flax fibres cultivated in the Midlands, UK, towards new material concepts. The aim of the article is to reflect upon the project in order to consider the hypothesis that connections between people and place can be fostered through a craft-approach to materials design. It begins by reporting on the current proliferation of the materials industry and starts to build an argument for the role that craft might play in developing an approach to materials that focuses on ‘place’ as a means to design for sustainability. A short industry review covering the resurgence in the use of flax fibres within new composites is then given. The practice-led project is also briefly presented, giving details of the author’s background, methodological approach and an overview of the results. The concluding discussion aims to bring together thoughts on the hypothesis by drawing on reflections from the project and signposting potential future directions in this area.
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Towards flow: Cross-stitching poetry
More LessAbstractThis portrait describes the author’s recent transition from fashion design to hand embroidery, in particular poetry cross-stitched by hand. The transition is underpinned by the author’s background in sustainability in fashion and textiles, and it is partly driven as a response to recent political developments in the United States. Craft becomes a potent site for political activism in the form of cross-stitched poetry. Poetry allows an economy of words difficult to achieve through other modes of writing, and it complements the author’s conventional academic writing. The cross-stitch poetry methods comprise both digital and manual spaces; digital tools are crucial to the author’s process of hand embroidery. The slow pace of hand stitching affords meditation on each letter and word, as a counterpoint to the urgency of most written communication today. This pace is an access to ‘nature’s time’, as an alternative to a pace of working primarily based on efficiency or productivity. Colonization, as a white person in Native spaces and as a male in traditionally female spaces, is in constant negotiation in the author’s work; as a white male it is easy, even automatic, to be the dominator, the colonizer. Nonetheless the author sees cross-stitch as a potent medium for taking a stand on injustice.
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Exhibition Review
More LessAbstractThe End of Fashion exhibition, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, 8–9 December 2016
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Publication Review
By Pat DillonAbstractCrafting Textiles in the Digital Age, Nithikul Nimkulrat, Faith Kane and Kerry Walton (eds) (2016) London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 240pp., ISBN-13: 9781472532046, h/bk, £85.00; ISBN: 9781474286206, p/bk, £19.99
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Conference Review
Authors: Dorothy Hardy and Richard ArmAbstractCraft Meets Science: A review of Make: Shift 2016, Biannual Crafts Council conference, Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, 10–11 November 2016
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