Full Description
This book focusses on the role of craft as a continuing cultural practice and the revival of disappearing skills in contemporary society. It includes twenty-five essays by highly regarded artisans, academics, technologists, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, curators, and researchers from many countries representing a wide range of global craft traditions and innovations.
The authors explain their professional practices and creative pathways with knowledge, experience, and passion. They offer insightful analyses of their traditions within their culture and in the marketplace, alongside the evolution of technology as it adapts to support experimentation and business strategies. They write about teaching and research informing their practice; and they explain the importance of their tools and materials in function and form of the objects they make. The essays reveal a poignant expression of their successes, disappointments, and opportunities.
This book offers case studiesof how artisans have harnessed the traditions of the past alongside the latest design technologies. The authors reveal how global craft is not only a vehicle for self-expression and creativity, but also for being deeply relevant to the world of work, community and environmental sustainability. The book makes the vital link between skills, knowledge, education, and employment, and fills a much-needed niche in Technical, Vocational Education and Training TVET.
Contents
Section 1 Tradition and Aspiration.- Invisible Menders - The Convict Women Who Made the Rajah Quilt.- Learning from Craft.- Custodians of Culture in the Global Market.- Section 2 Cross-Cultural Traditions.- Macassan Influence on Arnhem Land Material Culture.- Section 3 The Woven.- In Her Hands: Bilum Weaving in Papua New Guinea.- Weaving Their Way to Self-Sufficiency.- Al-Sadu Textile Research Project.- Section 4 The Carved.- Learning to Carve Wood in the Trobriand Islands.- Section 5 The Fired.- Firing Sculpture and Its Public Interactions.- Section 6 The Educational - Research and Development.- Contextual Learning - Craft and Design in Technical and Vocational Education.- Educating in the Crafts: The Role of Research Organisations in Continuing Craft Traditions.- Crafting Higher Education in the UK: Tensions Between Policy and Practice.- The Impact of Creative Learning on Young People's Wellbeing.- Learning Craft through Educational Research Projects - reflectionfrom Thailand.- Section 7 The Digital.- Towards Digital Craft.- Chiang Mai Digital Craft: The Craftsman and Digital Technology.
