Building A Craftscape
There is no single history of craft.
Craft is at the core of cultural knowledge, learning between generations, and community connections. Although museums and academia are considered cultural centers, these spaces do not include the breadth and depth of craft histories.
Building a craftscape — an interconnected web of understanding that links objects with makers, histories, cultures, the environment — moves us from inviting people to have a seat at a table to rethinking the table itself.
What is possible when we shift our thinking towards building a field connected to the lands beneath our feet?
Scroll for video and resources.
Unearthing the Craftscape
A new generation of scholars and curators are exploring how craft objects are shaped by the forces of history, culture, and society. Call it the “craftscape.”
By Anjula Razdan
Published in the Summer 2021 issue of American Craft magazine, published by the American Craft Council
Read the entire piece below:
In November 2020, Namita Gupta Wiggers, Director of the MA Program, and Dave Ellum, Dean of Land Resources, discussed the emerging craftscape at Warren Wilson College.
This video is presented by Warren Wilson College, as part of its 2020 faculty webinar series.
To explore other topics, please click here to visit the college’s YouTube channel.
Click video below to watch now:
This presentation expands on the following published essay:
Namita Gupta Wiggers, Matter and Material, Matter as Material, RAW: Craft, Commodity, and Capitalism, Los Angeles: CraftContemporary, 2019
(Essay available at Academia.edu)
(Exhibition Catalog available via CraftContemporary)
Links referenced in webinar and recommended reading:
MA student publication: https://www.macraftstudieswwc.com/publication
Joy Harjo: https://www.joyharjo.com/
Anthony Romero: https://smfa.tufts.edu/directory/anthony-romero
MA curriculum: https://www.macraftstudieswwc.com/curriculum
Lavanya Mani’s “Signs Taken for Wonders” at Mumbai’s Chemould Prescott (Architectural Digest): https://tinyurl.com/y5acg9dn
Arjun Appadurai - Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy at author's personal website: https://tinyurl.com/y4ehemmr
The Children's Museum of Houston: https://www.cmhouston.org/
Stephanie Syjuco | Cargo Cults: https://www.stephaniesyjuco.com/projects/cargo-cults
Carolyn Steel How Food Shapes Our Lives: https://vimeo.com/79766878
https://www.ancient.eu/Silk_Road/ -- This map indicates trading routes used around the 1st century CE centred on the Silk Road. The routes remain largely valid for the period 500 BCE to 500 CE.
TRADES WINDS & CURRENTS: https://tinyurl.com/yyex2hrr
Kathryn Yusoff's A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None at UMN Press: https://tinyurl.com/y4bq6mpq
Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton at Bookshop.org: https://tinyurl.com/y48kae5r
How Profits From Slavery Changed the Landscape of the Scottish Highlands (Smithsonian Mag)
Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples at Bookshop.org: https://tinyurl.com/y3w56hl4
State of Indigo: https://www.materialsource.co.uk/state-of-indigo/
Teresita Fernandez: http://artistproject.metmuseum.org/2/teresita-fernandez/
Ocean Vuong: https://www.oceanvuong.com/
Black Craftspeople Digital Archive: http://blackcraftspeople.org/
"What Happened When Fred Wilson Dug Beneath a Museum’s Floorboards" at Hyperallergic: https://tinyurl.com/yyjydmjd
Natalie Chanin | Alabama Chanin: https://alabamachanin.com/meet-our-team
Object Focus: The Bowl https://objectfocusbowl.tumblr.com/ | http://www.museumofcontemporarycraft.org/
Making Space: Museums and Craft in the Twenty-First Century https://www.bgc.bard.edu/research-forum/articles/132/making-space-museums-and-craft
Laurie Herrick | Weaving Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow http://mocc.pnca.edu/exhibitions/1270
Touching Warms the Art http://mocc.pnca.edu/exhibitions/1399
Qualla and Crafts https://www.quallaartsandcrafts.com/history.php
Warren Wilson Land Innovation https://www.warren-wilson.edu/about/land-innovation/
Center for Craft: https://www.centerforcraft.org/
Sales of the student publication support scholarships for BIPOC students: https://www.macraftstudieswwc.com/publication
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