clip_image002

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

• 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

Journal of Modern Craft 2-3

Editorial Introduction

Articles

A Ghost in the Machine Age: The Westerwald Stoneware Industry and German Design Reform, 1900–1914 by Freyja Hartzell

A Catalan Werkstätte? Arts and Crafts Schools between Modernisme and Noucentisme by Jordi Falgàs

Early Expressions of Anthroposophical Design in America: The Infuence of Rudolf Steiner and Fritz Westhoff on Wharton Esherick by Roberta A. Mayer and Mark Sfrri

Primary Text Commentary

Design in Ireland: Report of the Scandinavian Design Group in Ireland, April 1861, by Paul Caffrey

Statement of Practice

Handspring Puppet Company by Adrian Kohler, Basil Jones and Tommy Luther (pdf)

Exhibition Reviews

Craft in its Gaseous State: Wouldn’t It Be Nice … Wishful Thinking in Art and Design by Mònica Gaspar

Quiet Persuasion: Political Craft by Geraldine Craig

Book Reviews

A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression reviewed by Sandra Alfoldy

Designing Modern Britain reviewed by Peter Hughes

Editorial introduction

Articles

Style, Skill and Modernity in the Zisha Pottery of China by Geoffrey Gowlland

Elbert Hubbard, Transcendentalism and the Arts and Crafts Movement in America by Jonathan Clancy

Hungarian Pottery, Politics and Identity: Re-presenting the Ceramic Art of Margit Kovacs by Juliet Kinchin

‘Acts of Association: Allison Smith’s Craft as Civic Practice’ (pdf) by Jennifer Geigel Mikulay

Looking is a Way of Touching by Gabriela Gusmao

Commentary by Mireia Freixa and Anna Calvera

Reviews

Application of the Arts to Industry by Salvador Sanpere i Miquel

Design in the Age of Darwin: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright by Baird Jarman

Jean Nouvel Cesar, Anthology by Patricia Ribault

Battleground: War Rugs from Afghanistan by Susan Cahill

Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan by Alicia Volk

Craft in Dialogue: Six Views on a Practice in Change by Henrietta Lidchi

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

The Journal of Modern Craft is produced by Berg Publishers, who have several related journals underway already (among them Fashion Theory, Home Cultures, and Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture).

The journal was launched in March, 2008. Each issue will include an editorial page; 4-5 peer-reviewed articles, each about 25 pages in length; an exhibition and book review section; and a reprinted historical text, sometimes in translation.

The overall editorial objective is that the journal will support a mobile and wide-ranging contemporary discourse on craft as an issue in all creative fields, while also being an authoritative historical voice on the subject of craft as a field or movement in its own right.

For access to the full contents of this journal, go here.