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CALL FOR PAPERS

Carbon Issue: Sustainability in Craft & Design

craft + design enquiry is seeking papers for the Carbon Issue: Sustainability in Craft & Design.

This issue welcomes academic papers documenting research that contributes to an understanding of sustainability as a context for craft and design. This understanding ranges from the practical to the symbolic.

Papers can include:

• A review historical movements such as the Arts & Crafts movement or Bauhaus
• A reflection on current craft and design projects
• An engagement with contemporary sustainability discourse
• A speculation on the future of craft and design in a world more than two degrees warmer than today
• A critical examination of the relationship between sustainability and aesthetics

More information here and discussion here.

Journal website: www.craftaustralia.org.au/cde

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Lisa Walker Brooch, Untitled, 2007 Plastic, silicon, silver, lacquer, glue, string Photo: www.klimt02.net

What do a professional jeweller and an amateur boatbuilder have in common?

If you answered craft, you’re almost there. But the correct answer is glue.

The most popular method of amateur boatbuilding is called ‘stitch and glue’, which entails following templates to cut the plywood profiles, stitching them in place and using epoxy to glue the seams. You do not need to be a master craftsman to use glue. Maybe for this reason, in the jewellery world glue is the Anti-Christ.

Lisa Walker is an acclaimed contemporary jeweller. But her practice has been linked to amateur’s work for its apparent spontaneous nature and her choice of materials and processes. It exemplifies what can be described as a visible shift to a notion of ‘deskilling’ in the applied arts, a voluntary abandonment of one of its cornerstones – craftsmanship. This is reflected both in the increasing use of found objects and in ‘botching’ things a bit. But we have to understand that this distance from the technically ‘well made’ and polished object is often done by artists who have had the training to make things ‘well’ – and here I want to stress that this idea of the ‘well made’ is usually applied to the level of craftsmanship employed, that is, a traditional understanding of skill.

As the brooch below shows, she may have abandoned some traditional skills but is still referencing the history of jewellery, with a great sense of colour and composition.

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Lisa Walker Necklace, 2007 Wool, plastic shell, ceramic, lacquer, cardboard, ink, fabric, thread Photo: Lisa Walker, in Schmuck/Jeweleries, 2007

A New Zealander with a traditional training in jewellery, Walker moved to Germany in the mid-nineties to study at the Jewellery Department of the Munich Arts Academy. Instead of carrying on with metal, she started making jewellery using found objects; assemblages whose raw materials she often bought in haberdashers, hobby and model maker shops. Her pieces may be populated by fake plants, plastic ice-cream cones, bits of wood, thread, plastic, shell and pearls. Or even rubbish from the workshop floor.

Lisa Walker was not the first among contemporary jewellers to use ‘poor’ materials. Jewellers like Bernhard Schobinger and Ramon Puig Cuyas have used detritus and found objects, albeit in a more aestheticized way.

Joining materials is one the preoccupations of jewellers. But whereas Schobinger and Puig Cuyas more or less stuck to jewellery processes to construct their pieces – soldering, riveting, stringing etc. – Walker decided to assemble her pieces using glue, an idiosyncratic process that made her stand out in the field. Being considered the Anti-Christ of the jewellery world, glue is used ‘secretly’ in both traditional and contemporary jewellery. For Lisa Walker, glue was the catalyst of a new direction, as the critic Damian Skinner[1] has asserted. In 1996 she stated:

…I had to ‘unlearn’ everything I’d learnt in my jewellery training… I made lots of stuff just out of glue, bashing and squeezing it just before it dried, scraping the drips off my table, things like that.[2]

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Lisa Walker Brooch, Untitled, 2006 Rubbish from workshop floor Photo: www.klimt02.net

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Lisa Walker Necklace, Untitled, 2007 Fresh water pearls, wool, glue Photo: www.klimt02.net

Used by amateurs aspiring to make things well, glue fixes the incongruous assemblages of disparate objects, the collages in scrapbooks, the shells that encrust boxes and frames like domestic barnacles. Lisa Walker does not aspire to make things well in the sense of the ‘well made’ discussed previously. She does not use glue in a ‘polite’ way, like an amateur who aims to make it invisible. She lets glue overflow, using it both as adhesive and as a material, even sometimes combining it with gold leaf to create a new material.

Lisa Walker

Lisa Walker Brooch, Untitled, 2007 Felt, glue, silver, lacquer Photo: www.klimt02.net

What else differentiates Walker’s work from that of the amateur? Let’s start with a similarity between the hobbyist and the professional maker: in the initial period of learning a skill, it is common to copy examples and models, a certain template, in order to understand and practice a process. The difference seems to be that the amateur, even after becoming competent in a process, usually carries on following the template. He or she may not stray from the template, both aesthetically and in terms of adapting the process to more creatively ambitious projects (although, of course, amateurs can also be creative). Amateurs seem to stick to patterns and conventions. This in turn points to the issue of autonomy and the intention of the artist, of a creative impulse that is not constrained by externally imposed parameters of knowledge of execution, but which is reflective and self-critical.

If we understand ‘amateur’ as someone who engages with a craft or art form out of pure personal pleasure in a world where copying is common and critique is absent, we may glimpse another basic difference: speculation. Artists like Lisa Walker deal with questions for which there is no template to follow, just as there is no glue for the seams of the world.

All images reproduced with kind permission of Lisa Walker.

Dionea Rocha Watt is a first year MPhil student in the Critical & Historical Studies Department at the Royal College of Art, London

[2] Quoted in Schmuck/Jewelleries, (Förderpreis der Stadt München), Munich: Kulturrreferat der Landeshauptstadt München, 2007

• Monday, March 29, from 6 to 8pm
• Library of the Paul Mellon Centre in Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA

Copies of the book will be available for £20 (cheaper than Amazon!).

craft reader launch

Beauty Ntshalintshali and Mavis Shabalala (2009). Guineafowl Tureen, 29 x 35 x 28cm. Masterpiece Collection: Ardmore Ceramics. Photo used with permission.

I agree with Bickford Berzock & Frank that ‘it is clear that today the market for African ceramics is outpacing scholarship. Published research on African ceramics is highly idiosyncratic and uneven in depth and cultural representation. Only a few traditions have been the focus of in-depth study by multiple researchers offering complementary perspectives’ (Bickford Berzock & Frank, 2007). Notwithstanding the lack of scholarly research, here I discuss the question of whether African ceramics is harboured or hindered by European industry, influence and appetite and its impact on village and studio practice.

The largest pottery studio in South Africa, Ardmore Ceramics, is an interesting case. It was founded by white South African artist, Fèe Halsted after she had trained a disabled black South African, Bonnie Ntshalintshali, and discovered a powerful dynamic in combining European and African craft traditions. By ingenuity, by thrift and by chance, Halsted developed the style that has made Ardmore Ceramics internationally renowned (Ardmore Ceramics, 2010). Not quite African nor European in neither aesthetic nor sensibility. Intricately decorated ware in a Western ceramic tradition, the work is brightly coloured and the forms unique, featuring flora and animal motifs with almost mythological figurines in fantasy narratives. The only thing African about them is perhaps the subject matter, the style of modelling and colouring. They seem to evoke a familiar African aesthetic, however they do not have a sense of traditional tribal pottery, the work more resembling narrative-based wood carvings of Malawi and Zimbabwe. Ardmore pottery would be most comfortable in an upmarket home, office or gallery; the concept is technologically European with an African aesthetic spin and justifiably heavy price tags. In 2008 eight Ardmore pieces fetched over GB£20,000 at Bonhams in London (Prendini Toffoli, 2008). The Ardmore website currently has a set of candlesticks for GB£7,500. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve coveted Ardmore Ceramics for years but have never quite had the funds to shell out for one. They are a fabulous example of co-creative practice. Each piece is made in stages of construction, sculpting and painting by different artists to produce a shared outcome.

The influence of the European drive for production and saleability might be a strong influence in the style evolution of the potters’ wares.

It seems that the successful African potters are for the most part discovered then engineered into greatness by Europeans. Without European business entrepreneurship these potters would, it seems have continued in their craft serving their communities. Their craft would then have remained in its pure, traditional and primarily functional form.

Ardmore is in stark contrast to traditional craft pottery of the African village. With the latter, clay is dug by hand, dried and ground like grain, hand built by coiling and burnished. Then wood or smoke fired in aloe leaves as the first firing and a final firing in umTomboti wood – toxic while burning, its oils stain pots a deep lustrous black. The pots are finally glossed up with animal fat.

The now internationally renowned Nesta Nala from the Tugela Ferry area of Zululand worked exclusively in that tradition. Nala was the foremost potter who brought Zulu pottery onto the world stage. She passed on her skills to her daughters and at her death in 2005 many in South Africa considered her a national treasure. She represented South Africa at the Cairo International Biennale for ceramics in 1994, received South Africa’s prestigious Vita award for craft in 1995, in 1999 participated in the Smithsonian Institute’s Folk Life Project in Washington. Her work is represented in major collections in South Africa and worldwide (Ceramics Today, circa 2001). Her pottery was traditional in the true sense – functional pots used in everyday Zulu tribal life and prized by the local rural community for its beauty. Considering the rudimentary equipment and method, her work is startling, exhibiting purity of form, perfect proportion and embellished with exquisitely simple reliefs. While much of her decoration style was in the Zulu geometric patterning tradition, she later experimented with fish and other motifs. Hints of European influence are found in her later pieces where she was encouraged to sign and date her work – a very unAfrican practice. Nala’s promotion and exposure at the Association of Potters of Southern Africa and Corobrik National Ceramics Exhibitions of the 90’s generated interest in traditional Zulu pottery. Had Nala not been discovered and catapulted onto the world art stage, her work would have remained in rural obscurity. Although world-renowned she remained a rurally based, traditional village potter until her death, never crossing the divide to a studio tradition. She left her legacy in the Nala family of potters and paved the way for other Zulu potters like the Magwaza family and the noteworthy Clive Sithole.

Clive Sithole is an exception—a true studio potter who studied traditional techniques under Nesta Nala. Heavily influenced by Nala, his works feature traditional Zulu form with added sculptural elements and a more Western style pit-firing. His work is considered a new development in the history of the craft. Successfully positioning his pot-making as an art form, he developed a style that incorporates bovine reliefs from the Zulu tradition of young boys making clay bulls (Van Wyk, 2010). His pots fuse the form and functionality of Nala’s and his own decorative style. While there are other examples, one hopes Clive Sithole heralds the future of African potters – creative practice unfettered by European influence yet relevant on the world art scene.

Bernard Zondo and Zinhle Nene (2009). Porcupine Tureen detail, 29 x 27 x 20cm. Masterpiece Collection: Ardmore Ceramics. Photo used with permission.

The end-use of African ceramics is fascinating and requires more research. Where the potter creates traditional ware, it is functionally useful to Africans as everyday or special occasion ware. The very same piece in the hands of Europeans becomes an art piece separated from its context and devoid of its utilitarian function yet prized for its beauty and market value. African Art Centre in Durban assists craft producers to sell their ware to collectors, interior decorators and particularly tourists. The high-end work is earmarked for galleries and collectors and the remainder is generally relegated to tourist curios. An unsurprising phenomenon is the plethora of studios of previously disadvantaged potters industriously churning out Africanesque pottery for Western consumption. Far worse is white South Africans churning out Western ceramics decorated in a kitsch quasi-African style. This is unduly harsh criticism of black craft studios as tourist patronage keeps bread on the table of these craftspeople who otherwise have no source of income.

The success of traditional pottery seems inextricably linked to Europeans; either as facilitators or business leaders on the one hand or the purchasers on the other. This symbiotic relationship has the drawback of the best artefacts ending up overseas, however the benefit is increased interest and trade in pottery (even from the tourism sector) allowing potters to develop and refine their practice and supports more people in the community learning the craft, ironically ensuring its survival as a tradition. At this juncture whether an African potter is studio-based or works traditionally does not seem to affect their fortunes, only that they are discovered and promoted. It is likely that as more potters like Clive Sithole come up through the ranks, African pottery will organically develop its own aesthetic and become increasingly self-assured. And that which is created in studios will influence the village potter.

Bibliography

• African Ceramics (2010). Arts and crafts from Africa. Retrieved 20 February, 2010, from http://www.ceramicsafrica.co.za/index.htm
• Ardmore Ceramics (2010). Ardmore’s history. Retrieved 20 February, 2010, from http://www.ardmoreceramics.co.za/about/history.php
• Bickford Berzock, Kathleen & Frank, Barbara E. (2007). Ceramic arts in Africa. African Arts (Spring). Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0438/is_1_40/ai_n18646981/?tag=content;col1
• Capolo, Mark (2008). Traditional Zulu village and pottery. Travel Blog 17 March. Retrieved 28 September, 2009, from http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/KwaZulu-Natal/Pietermaritzburg/blog-257001.html
• Ceramics Today (circa 2001). Nesta Nala & Clive Sithole Retrieved 21 February, 2010, from http://www.ceramicstoday.com/potw/zulu.htm
• Chennell, Louise, & Talbot, Kathy (2008). Exhibition review: Sankofa: Ceramic tales from Africa. Interpreting Ceramics (10).
• Colleen (2010). Traditional smoke firing. Ceramics South Africa, (15 January). Retrieved from http://ceramicssouthernafrica.blogspot.com/search/label/Traditional%20South%20African%20Ceramics
• Davern, Fiona (2006). Made in South Africa. Design Seven, p. 76–80.
• ELC Art and Craft Centre Rorke’s Drift (2010). The passion. Retrieved 20 February, 2010, from http://www.puul.de/centre/index.html?=ceramic_studio.html
• Folk Art South Africa (2010). Ceramics and pottery. Retrieved 20 February, 2010, from http://www.folkartsouthafrica.com/category.php?cid=1
• Inkosi Imported Crafts (2010). Zulu clay pots. Retrieved 19 February, 2010, from http://nkosiimportedcrafts.com/Zulu_Clay_Pots.html
• Prendini Toffoli, Hilary (2008). Evermore Ardmore. Financial Mail, September 5, p. 86–87.
• Sizana Craft (2010). Homepage. Retrieved 19 February, 2010, from http://www.sizanacraft.co.za/contentpage.aspx?pageid=3643
• Tatham Art Gallery (2008). Ardmore Ceramic Studio: HIV/AIDS exhibition. Retrieved 15 February, 2010, from http://www.tatham.org.za/ardmore-ceramics-studio.html
• The Pottery Studio (2010). About the potters: Nic Sithole. Retrieved 10 February, 2010, from http://www.potterystudio.co.za/about.html
• Van Wyk, Gary (2010). Interview with Clive Sithole. African Arts, 21 February. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0438/is_1_40/ai_n18646986/
• Zizamele Ceramics (2010). The art of changing lives. Retrieved 11 February, 2010, from http://www.zizamele.co.za/index.html

Steven Smith is a Lecturer in Advertising Design at the Institute of Communication Design, Massey University, New Zealand.  Steven has been a practicing studio potter in South Africa for over twenty years and has a keen interest in Zulu culture and craft, especially pottery.

Lestina Malatjie and Calvin Machlawaule, (Kaross Collective), Community, 1999. Embroidery on black cloth, 60 x 115 cm. Collection: Johannesburg Art Gallery

Lestina Malatjie and Calvin Machlawaule, (Kaross Collective), Community, 1999. Embroidery on black cloth, 60 x 115 cm. Collection: Johannesburg Art Gallery

Shortly after the newly democratic ANC-led government of South Africa was installed in 1994, it issued a White Paper that announced a policy of using the arts for the purpose of social transformation and reconciliation. The paper asserted that “experiencing the creative expression of different communities of South Africa provides insights into the aspirations and values of our nation. This experience develops tolerance and provides a foundation for national reconciliation.” One outcome of this policy should have been to bridge the gap between art and craft in South African cultural property. Unfortunately, because government support for ‘craft’ was predicated on its ability to alleviate poverty– “to contribute significantly to the economy of the country by…creating employment,” its effect has been to maintain the hierarchical distinction between art and craft by reinforcing the divide between the aesthetic and the practical and between the rural and urban. The Department of Arts and Culture’s motto: “Design Feeds the Poor,” could hardly be expected to resonate with an international art market now free, after the lifting of sanctions, to scour the county for the next hot art star. Both the government and the museum/gallery system are driven by monetary concerns, but with radically different goals. In the end, one could argue that the gap between art and craft in the new South Africa is a reflection of the bottomless chasm between rich and poor.

When I first went to South Africa in 2000, I was exhilarated by the art world’s rethinking of the traditional categories of what constituted art. Universities were hurriedly revamping art history courses to include ‘traditional’ arts, and museums were not only purchasing the work of black painters, sculptors and printmakers, they were displaying both traditional and contemporary crafts along with the ‘high’ arts of painting and sculpture. The legacy of 19^th century concepts of what constituted art and art history was quietly being buried, or so it seemed. For over a century, the avant-garde had advocated the destruction of the very idea of ‘high’ art, whereas the history of art was narrowly confined to the study of traditional media. In South Africa in 2000, it appeared as if the internal contradiction within modernism was going to be resolved in favor of the avant-garde. From the perspective of this newcomer, the history of art was being reconceived as the history of cultural production, and the former hierarchies among media were being leveled.

In 2003, in the exhibition, “Coexistence: Contemporary Cultural Production in South Africa,” that I co-curated with the former Director of the South African National Gallery, Marilyn Martin, we included the work of rural needlework collectives along with that of university-trained artists working in cities in South Africa or abroad. Our aim was to bridge not only the rural/urban//craft/art divide but also the gender divide. The needlework collectives had been established for the most part by white women artists who had identified traditional craft skills as a means of income generation. Among the most successful was and remains the Kaross collective in Limpopo Province. Founded by Irma van Rooyen in 1988, it employs over 600 people today, the vast majority of whom are women. (B. Schmahmann in the exhibition catalog). Even if the role of these white founders might be considered a form of colonialism, it anticipated government policy and moreover has given disadvantaged women new status in their communities, answering the call of the ANC Women’s League “for the right to fashion feminism to suit their own worlds.” I will use the example of a stunning embroidered cloth to illustrate the complexities of the art/craft divide in the South African context post-1994.

Community (1999) is a subtle interweaving of voices—a textile in the truest sense of the word. The cloth was commissioned by the National Paper Prayers Campaign for AIDS Awareness (1998-2000), initiated by artist Kim Berman and administered through Artist Proof Studio. In collaboration with AIDS educators, the Studio members went to community centers in all of South Africa’s nine provinces to help address trauma and loss through the process of making a print as a prayer for healing. During its second year, the program expanded to three needlework collectives, each of which produced large-scale hangings—a sort of surrogate painting– that could serve either to inform the local populace if hung in a community center or as a collectible art work to raise funds for treatment programs. Like a storybook, Community visually narrates the story of the impact of AIDS on a rural village. As drawn by Calvin Machlawaule, who is HIV positive, and then embroidered by Lestina Malatjie, it emphasizes the tragic consequences of denial and stigma in the era of AIDS.

Clearly the cloth is a hybrid in more ways than one. At the Kaross collective, the women’s needlework skills had been transferred from creating clothing for personal use to making place mats and tablecloths for the tourist trade. Once the government-funded Paper Prayers program provided a tool for AIDS awareness, the resulting narrative cloths had a powerful content that transcended both its educational purpose and its ‘craft’ designation. Signed by the embroiderer, Malatjie, in order to satisfy the predominantly white collectors’ expectations of authorship, it was exhibited at the Vita Craft Awards, where it won a top prize and was purchased by the Johannesburg Art Gallery. Neither the format of the wall hanging nor its content was the result of Malatjie’s individual inspiration, however. The work, as its title indicates, was the collaborative effort of several of the participants in the training, as overseen by the artists and educators. And despite the exceptional quality of the work, Malatjie has not emerged as a recognized craft-artist. As for Community itself, it remains in storage at JAG, its status as ‘art’ in limbo.

Of course, ‘community’ is the problem. In South Africa, ‘high’ art is still thought of as the product of an individual sensibility, despite every effort to rethink categories to be more reflective of the values of a democratic nation. The fact that the needlework collectives consist predominantly of women has only contributed further to locking the art/craft hierarchy more firmly into place. Until very recently, ‘high’ art, as defined in western terms, was considered a male-only realm within the majority black culture. Although this is rapidly changing, the continuing rural/urban divide—men in the city, women in the countryside– also contributes to maintaining the status quo.

The situation results in an impoverished picture of South African art, as exemplified by the recent publication, South African Art Now, authored by artist Sue Williamson and produced by HarperCollins in the U.S. In this broad survey, the craft traditions are acknowledged only in terms of individual practitioners employing handwork skills to make ‘art.’ The important work of the embroidery or pottery collectives receives no mention at all. Of course, in the United States, one rarely finds publications on community-based art or artists’ collectives; monographic studies of individual artists still predominate. Although it is hardly surprising that HarperCollins, owned by the conservative propagandist Rupert Murdoch, followed this established hierarchy, the book does distort the South African picture, in my opinion.

The arts will never be able to adequately contribute to social transformation and reconciliation in South Africa until the art/craft divide is finally and firmly bridged. The country has faced and surmounted far greater challenges, so the cause is far from lost.

Pamela Allara is Associate Professor emerita, Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA

Hlengiwe Dube outside the Geelong Art Gallery fixing a wire basket

In the past, she has completed a number of commission for beaded public art in South Africa. This year she is producing a South African flag, embroidered entirely of beads, which will fly at the Madiba Stadium for the FIFA World Cup.

The African Art Centre where Hlengiwe works has a small gallery which hosts exhibitions of crafters. It is one of the relatively few places in South Africa were craft can be seen in a gallery setting. It seems a natural progression for a crafter like Hlengiwe to have a solo exhibition including unique works from her artistic imagination. But to claim status as an individual art is more difficult than in Western contemporary craft. Traditional culture seems to have a much stronger pull. In the following brief interview, she starts the ball rolling on the question of African craft in galleries.

What prompted you to write a book on Zulu beadwork?

Zulu Beadwork cover by Hlengiwe Dube

When I was reading the books about the Zulu beadwork, they were all saying different things and I was so confused. I decided to go direct and communicate with the people whom wear the beadwork, as well as those who make beadwork. I sought to find out from them all the meaning of beadwork and colours that they used. It was very interesting because much of what I heard was different to what the available books were saying. I decided to collect all the information that I could and share it with the other Zulu beadwork lovers, as it was direct from the Zulu people.

Do you think Zulu craft like beadwork is the expression of an individual artist or a collective culture?

I think it is both. In some instances, craft items are intended for the sole use of a crafter or the person who wears or uses the craft object. You also find crafts which are representative of stylistic expressions of a particular culture with particular colours and designs of metaphoric significance to the concerned culture.

Would you like to see more of this craft in art galleries? If so, what do you think has prevented opportunities for their display?

I would definitely like to see more craft in art galleries. I think craft has always been relegated to a level lower that Fine Art, and not as a creative form of expression. I think display in craft in art galleries will narrow the divide between art and craft.

How do you see South African craft developing in the future?

I think South African craft is developing, embracing modern trends, usages and also attracts interest from other cultures.

*’Crafter’ is the preferred term for craftsperson in South Africa.

Nostalgia proved ripe for debate on June 26, when the University of Southampton Library and the Edinburgh College of Art organised a one-day symposium to explore the theme. Throughout the daylong conversation, focus veered back and forth along two axis. Nostalgia as a positive experience sat at one end of a line of thinking. Nostalgia as a negative mindset perched at the other extreme. A further contrast was the experience of nostalgia as an individual and intimate response to personal memory, versus the same sentiment considered on a national and even global scale distanced from first hand experience.

Slide carousels were definitively moved to the past with the first speaker of the day, Kevin Murray, speaking via skype about authenticity and craft. Murray’s thought provoking contribution explored “craft through the nostalgic lens” and introduced the British audience to Australian exhibitions and practitioners engaging with the theme. Whistling, milk bottles and the typewriter all found their way into the conversation. Murray spoke of a today’s “hypercapitalist world filled with material redundancy” and concluded that nostalgia acts as “both a retreat and a recovery”. Our testing of remote technology set the intended experimental tone for the day. Regrettably, one lesson to be gleaned from the experience was our inability as an audience to fully communicate to the speaker our engagement and enthusiasm – elements that are palpable when standing at the podium.

Linda Newington, Head of Faculty Services held an informal conversation with Tim Wildschut of the School of Psychology, both at the University of Southampton. Newington’s interest in nostalgia and knitting provided an accessible link to Wildschut’s research. In basic terms, Wildschut revealed that negative moods can trigger a nostalgic state of mind, but the result can leave an individual with “an increased sense of social support” which acts as “private self comforting”. Armed with this evidence that nostalgia is not indulgent whimsy after all, many speakers and participants expressed relief at the science Wildschut’s research illuminated. Curiously this point was returned to again and again throughout the day, suggesting the alleviation of much unspoken anxiety around the theme.

Carol Tulloch, a Reader in Dress History at Chelsea College of Art and Design, concluded the morning with a talk on her use of photographic archives to research dress history in Jamaica. Tulloch contrasted this experience with her more recent use of photographic collections inherited from her mother-in-law, drawing on Homi Bhahba’s notion of “fragments of history” to acknowledge that research “cannot gain all of the story”. But she also acknowledged that the “physical act of trolling through the photographic archives” she first used in Jamaica is an entirely different experience to the database dependent archival work many undertake today. “Unexpected finds” if nothing else, are often omitted when research is screened first through the tool of the digital database. So too is the slower pace with which the archival material comes to be known.

From Tullouch’s exploration of the recent past, conversation wound its way even further back in time to the Neolithic. Angela McClanahan, Lecturer in Visual & Material Culture at the Edinburgh College of Art introduced us to the Stones of Stenness, “a spectacular Neolithic henge monument located in the Orkney Islands, and the roles it has played in various forms of cultural production surrounding identity, ‘belonging’ and the construction of community over the last two centuries.” Recounting the “purposeful acts of curation, particularly romantic interpretations of the site as a Norse-Pagan ‘sacrificial’ ruin when it was taken into state care and interpreted for public consumption in 1906”, McClanahan tackled the question of nostalgia from the wide lens of the tourism economy and the identity as World Heritage Site. More recent controversy over the potential of a wind farm to be built visible to the site revealed yet another interpretation of nostalgia: a memory to remain static and unchanging despite of a local thirst for modernisation.

To conclude the day, I spoke with Textile Artist Clio Padovani about the role material and memory play in her current practice. Trained in tapestry, Padovani now works with video to create works that are in many ways ‘constructed’ as a tapestry would be assembled. The central role time plays in both weaving and new media were foregrounded in Padovani’s discussion of her practice. Here the spectrum of nostalgia was apparent in references to the artist’s Italian childhood, as well as a cultural nostalgia for the paintings of the great Italian masters, now reconfigured in digital works as ephemeral as the emotions they explore.

This event was modest in size, a detail that Linda and I felt, as organisers, to be crucial to both the audience and speakers ability to explore alternative and informal modes of presentation. We were lucky to enjoy the contribution of an engaged and questioning audience, who fed a lively and ongoing conversation throughout the day. But I wonder too, if the theme of nostalgia lends itself to this? Without feeling the need to be a subject expert, I sensed that everyone felt they had valid questions and comments to bring to the conversation, often based on personal anecdotes. Throughout the day, these contributions shed light on larger and more formal research topics introduced by the invited speakers. This event is one of two linked research days; the second will take place at the Edinburgh College of Art on July 24 and considers the theme of renewal. I wonder if the future will hold as much pause for thought as the past provided us with last week.

Several issues are guiding the planning of these events. The first has to do with how we talk about textiles, the second is the current economic crisis. At a recent seminar organised by Lesley Millar to coincide with the exhibition Deconocida: Unknown I, along with all participants, was asked to stitch a nametag for one of the women who have died in the lawless Mexican boarder town of Juarez. I found stitching while thinking occupied the audience in a way I had not seen before and have begun to wonder why, at conferences, we allow ourselves to become so separate from the material we are discussing?

One objective of the Nostalgia & Renewal Symposia is to explore alternative approaches to how we talk about textiles. This may involve greater contact with the materials themselves. But it may also involve dynamic conversations, rather than scripted lectures, when exploring new ideas or any other suggestions that deserve a testing ground. Each speaker at the two events has been invited to reconsider the manner in which they communicate their ideas and use the events to trial new ideas. Many research budgets are looking a little thin on the ground in the current economic climate, but that need not be an excuse to stop talking. At both events speakers will be making contributions via the Internet. This system is far from ideal, but it does bypass the need for international airline tickets and years of planning before the conversation can start. Textile and craft has never enjoyed lavish financial support. I suggest that this may put us in a strong position currently to continue deploying creative thinking to the research challenges at hand.

Finally, the poetic nature of the two themes – nostalgia & renewal – has allowed us to invite an interdisciplinary group of speakers and, I hope, will interest an interdisciplinary audience. While it is difficult to conceal the central role textiles occupy in the research of many participants, it is our hope that a more eclectic conversation will suggest new ways we might approach textile research in future.

Dr Jessica Hemmings, Associate Director of the Centre for Visual & Cultural Studies, Edinburgh College of Art

For more information, see previous notice.

June 26 & July 24, 2009

nos· tal· gi· a

1. responsible for the resurgence of interest in knitting debated at In the Loop: Knitting Past, Present & Future, a conference held at the Winchester School of Art in 2008 and recorded in the University of Southampton Knitting Archive[1]

2. apparent in such diverse territories as archaeology and tourism[2]

3. explorations of memory and material in new media[3]

4. Jamaican photographic archives and the study of dress[4]

5. red shoes[5]

6. authenticity and craft[6]

re· new· al

1. state of mind that believes creative textile practice can emerge from the current economic crisis with renewed authority and conviction

2. evident in the renewed social conscience of contemporary craft[7]

3. synthetic hair sculptures and the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans[8]

4. creative process and the zeitgeist[9]

5. the curious phenomenon of manias[10] old and new

Nostalgia & renewal are defined by Jessica Hemmings and Linda Newington with shameless attention to their mutual interest in alternative approaches to the research of textiles. Further expanded definitions of the terms and their relevance to textile research will be debated at the following events:

June 26 @ Textile Conservation Centre, Winchester (nostalgia)

For bookings please contact Judith Horgan 02380 596986 / J.A.Horgan@soton.ac.uk

July 24 @ Edinburgh College of Art (renewal)

For bookings please contact Jessica Hemmings 0131 221 6199 / j.hemmings@eca.ac.uk

Cost £35 per day includes lunch. Concessions available £20 per day.

[1] Linda Newington, Head of Faculty Services in conversation with Tim Wildschut School of Psychology, University of Southampton

[2] Angela McClanahan, Lecturer in Visual & Material Culture, Edinburgh College of Art

[3] Clio Padovani, Textile Artist in conversation with Dr Jessica Hemmings, Associate Director of the Centre for Visual and Cultural Studies, Edinburgh College of Art

[4] Carol Tulloch, TrAIN Senior Research Fellow Black Visual Culture, University of Arts London

[5] Hilary Davidson, Costume Curator, Museum of London (tbc)

[6] Kevin Murray, online editor of the Journal of Modern Craft (via skype)

[7] Deirdre Nelson, Textile Artist

[8] Loren Schwerd, Artist (via skype)

[9] Michelle Anderson Binczak, Editor of Bloom magazine

[10] Elizabeth Kramer, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, University of Newcastle

Cabinet maker at Upper Canada Village, Morrisburg

In2.1 Journal of Modern Craft, a number of articles open up the issue of tradition in modern craft. So when is craft a manufactured nostalgia and when is it an active resistance to modernity? Please feel free to add your comments to the posts on this question. To learn more, you can read the print journal or download the selected articles:

• Editorial Introduction
• Craft and the Dialogics of Modernity: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Late-Victorian and Edwardian England by Tom Crook
• Support/Surface or Sculpture/Craft: Considering Barbara Hepworth and Bernard Leach by Penelope Curtis
• “Traditional—with Contemporary Form”: Craft and Discourses of Modernity in Slovakia Today by Nicolette Makovicky