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From Oaxacan wood carvings to dessert kitchens in provincial France, Critical Craft presents thirteen ethnographies which examine what defines and makes 'craft' in a wide variety of practices from around the world. Challenging the conventional understanding of craft as a survival, a revival, or something that resists capitalism, the book turns instead to the designers, DIY enthusiasts, traditional artisans, and technical programmers who consider their labor to be craft, in order to comprehend how they make sense of it. The authors' ethnographic studies focus on the individuals and communities who claim a practice as their own, bypassing the question of craft survival to ask how and why activities termed craft are mobilized and reproduced. Moving beyond regional studies of heritage artisanship, the authors suggest that ideas of craft are by definition part of a larger cosmopolitan dialogue of power and identity. By paying careful attention to these sometimes conflicting voices, this collection shows that there is great flexibility in terms of which activities are labelled 'craft'. In fact, there are many related ideas of craft and these shape distinct engagements with materials, people, and the economy. Case studies from countries including Mexico, Nigeria, India, Taiwan, the Philippines, and France draw together evidence based on linguistics, microsociology, and participant observation to explore the shifting terrain on which those engaged in craft are operating. What emerges is a fascinating picture which shows how claims about craft are an integral part of contemporary global change.
From Oaxacan wood carvings to dessert kitchens in provincial France, Critical Craft presents thirteen ethnographies which examine what defines and makes ‘craft’ in a wide variety of practices from around the world. Challenging the conventional understanding of craft as a survival, a revival, or something that resists capitalism, the book turns instead to the designers, DIY enthusiasts, traditional artisans, and technical programmers who consider their labor to be craft, in order to comprehend how they make sense of it. The authors’ ethnographic studies focus on the individuals and communities who claim a practice as their own, bypassing the question of craft survival to ask how and why activities termed craft are mobilized and reproduced. Moving beyond regional studies of heritage artisanship, the authors suggest that ideas of craft are by definition part of a larger cosmopolitan dialogue of power and identity. By paying careful attention to these sometimes conflicting voices, this collection shows that there is great flexibility in terms of which activities are labelled ‘craft’. In fact, there are many related ideas of craft and these shape distinct engagements with materials, people, and the economy. Case studies from countries including Mexico, Nigeria, India, Taiwan, the Philippines, and France draw together evidence based on linguistics, microsociology, and participant observation to explore the shifting terrain on which those engaged in craft are operating. What emerges is a fascinating picture which shows how claims about craft are an integral part of contemporary global change.
This collection of 19 original essays argues for a critical and sustained engagement between the fields of craft and heritage. The book's interdisciplinary and international array of authors consider how heritage and craft institutions, policies, practices and audiences encounter the constraints and opportunities of production, recognition and exhibition. Case studies spanning 125 years raise and address questions concerning authenticity and commodification, innovation and improvisation, diasporas and decolonization, global economies and national and professional identities. Authors also analyse mechanisms through which craft mobilises and has been harnessed by heritage processes and designations. Examples range from an Irish village at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the role of chronopolitics in contemporary Vietnamese pottery, to the invisibility of crochet within Swedish heritagisation processes and the application of game theory in a ceramics museum. With section one considering citizenship and identity, section two sustainability and section three dynamic craft in cultural institutions, Craft and Heritage interrogates how craft objects, makers and processes intersect with current heritage concerns and practices.
Throughout the 21st century, various craft practices have drawn the attention of academics and the general public in the West. In Craft is Political, D Wood has gathered a collection of essays to argue that this attention is a direct response to and critique of the particular economic, social and technological contexts in which we live. Just as Ruskin and Morris viewed craft and its ethos in the 1800s as a kind of political opposition to the Industrial Revolution, Wood and her authors contend that current craft activities are politically saturated when perspectives from the Global South, Indigenous ideology and even Western government policy are examined. Craft is Political argues that a holistic perspective on craft, in light of colonialism, post-colonialism, critical race theory and globalisation, is overdue. A great diversity of case studies is included, from craft and design in Turkey and craft markets in New Zealand to Indigenous practitioners in Taiwan and Finnish craft education. Craft is Political brings together authors from a variety of disciplines and nations to consider politicised craft.
Winner of the Newbery Medal, Coretta Scott King Author Award, and Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature! Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, New Kid is a timely, honest graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real, from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft. Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself? This middle grade graphic novel is an excellent choice for tween readers, including for summer reading. New Kid is a selection of the Schomburg Center's Black Liberation Reading List. Plus don't miss Jerry Craft's Class Act!
What is craft? How is it different from fine art or design? In A Theory of Craft, Howard Risatti examines these issues by comparing handmade ceramics, glass, metalwork, weaving, and furniture to painting, sculpture, photography, and machine-made design from Bauhaus to the Memphis Group. He describes craft's unique qualities as functionality combined with an ability to express human values that transcend temporal, spatial, and social boundaries. Modern design today has taken over from craft the making of functional objects of daily use by employing machines to do work once done by hand. Understanding the aesthetic and social implications of this transformation forces us to see craft as well as design and fine art in a new perspective, Risatti argues. Without a way of understanding and valuing craft on its own terms, the field languishes aesthetically, being judged by fine art criteria that automatically deny art status to craft objects. Craft must articulate a role for itself in contemporary society, says Risatti; otherwise it will be absorbed by fine art or design and its singular approach to understanding the world will be lost. A Theory of Craft is a signal contribution to establishing a craft theory that recognizes, defines, and celebrates the unique blend of function and human aesthetic values embodied in the craft object.
With contributions from 30 leading media scholars, this collection provides a comprehensive overview of the main methodologies of critical media studies. Chapters address various methods of textual analysis, as well as reception studies, policy, production studies, and contextual, multi-method approaches, like intertextuality and cultural geography. Film and television are at the heart of the collection, which also addresses emergent technologies and new research tools in such areas as software studies, gaming, and digital humanities. Each chapter includes an intellectual history of a particular method or approach, a discussion of why and how it was used to study a particular medium or media, relevant examples of influential work in the area, and an in-depth review of a case study drawn from the author's own research. Together, the chapters in this collection give media critics a complete toolbox of essential critical media studies methodologies.
Craft is resurgent. More people are buying craft; more money is being spent on craft products than ever before. This book centres craft as a creative industry, illuminating the experiences of those working in and around craft, particularly people from marginalised groups. Shining a light on inequalities around craft work, the author examines the lived experiences of women makers of colour in the professional craft sector. Experiences of racism and microaggressions at all stages of their craft career are analysed. The author draws on innovative empirical research carried out in the UK and Australia, two countries where the resurgence in craft is apparent, yet professional craft practice is dominated by the white and relatively privileged. In interrogating hierarchies of expertise and cultural value in craft, the author employs case studies from community crafts and social enterprises. The result is a book of interest to scholars at the intersections of the creative and cultural industries, the creative economy and inequalities at work.
"Crafts were central to daily life in early modern Japan. They were powerful carriers of knowledge, sociality, and identity, and how and from what materials they were made were matters of serious concern among all classes of society. In Craft Culture in Early Modern Japan, Christine M. E. Guth examines the network of forces--both material and immaterial--that supported Japan's rich, diverse, and aesthetically sophisticated artifactual culture between the late sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Exploring the institutions, modes of thought, and reciprocal relationships among people, materials, and tools, she draws particular attention to the role of women in crafts, embodied knowledge, and the special place of lacquer as a medium. By examining the ways and values of making that transcend specific media and practices, Guth illuminates the 'craft culture' of early modern Japan"--
Since the 1990s, in response to dramatic transformations in the worlds of technology and the economy, design - a once relatively definable discipline, complete with a set of sub-disciplines - has become unrecognizable. Consequently, design scholars have begun to address new issues, themes and sub-disciplines such as: sustainable design, design for well-being, empathic design, design activism, design anthropology, and many more. The Routledge Companion to Design Studies charts this new expanded spectrum and embraces the wide range of scholarship relating to design - theoretical, practice-related and historical - that has emerged over the last four decades. Comprised of forty-three newly-commissioned essays, the Companion is organized into the following six sections: Defining Design: Discipline, Process Defining Design: Objects, Spaces Designing Identities: Gender, Sexuality, Age, Nation Designing Society: Empathy, Responsibility, Consumption, the Everyday Design and Politics: Activism, Intervention, Regulation Designing the World: Globalization, Transnationalism, Translation Contributors include both established and emerging scholars and the essays offer an international scope, covering work emanating from, and relating to, design in the United Kingdom, mainland Europe, North America, Asia, Australasia and Africa. This comprehensive collection makes an original and significant contribution to the field of Design Studies.