“As designers it's easy to run away from something as daunting as craft. Better yet we should be asking where design meets craft.”

As a young industrial designer, craft was something that evaded me continuously. Design pedagogy refused to address craft with a more process positive approach, but our college existed within the domain of craft for as long as time could tell. A deep rooted history of textile heritage and furniture mastery ran through the veins of the institution and it was a rather prevailing force in craft democracy during its early stages, but post globalization and maybe as a result of rapid hyper specialization (bachelors in industrial design being a specific course to meet global standards), craft’s presence was diluting slowly and it morphed into a tantalizing aspiration, where only those with the correct experience should address it.

Suhani, a textile designer, teaching us how to use a loom.

Appreciating student work in the furniture lab at NID.

In the midst of the dawn after Terra 2074, I received a mail stating I was nominated for a workshop in my own college, and the topic was Craft Futures, by a reputed speculative thinking studio known as Busride Labs. This were my wax wings to finally address where I stand on craft, given my intent to weld together narratives and objects, which craft has been reflecting for generations and minimal intervention. I flew out to Ahmedabad, a craft capital of India, and met some esteemed thinkers such as Ayaz Busrai and Sohil Soni, as well as the other participants, passionate students from my own college and architecture students from Taubmann, Michigan. The ten of us embarked on somewhat of a transformative, cognitive and explorative 5-day journey to address our personal views on craft and most importantly:

Does craft have a future, does it need to be preserved, and should designers be a part of the process or simply spectate?

The agenda was well planned and rather simple, involving deep conversations with experts in the field, designers and artisans. We travelled to important craft destinations in Ahmedabad. The Calico Textile Museum was one such experience where we investigated the origins of a specific facet of craft culture from the roots of a well archived source. My personal definition of craft, given my lack of experience in said field, was vividly placed in a specific context.

Working towards our craft definition presentations.

In the heart of old city, Ahmedabad.

Craft to me was a process of making that brought people together to knit a story around an object.

This process seemed to excel in the test of time. I was further interested in this for my drive to imbue narratives into products and let objects evolve generationally as well. People should come together over daily objects and build a microcosm of society in their own way. Certain embedded processes in craft include apprenticeship which is the passing forward of techniques and tools yet it paves the way for the apprentice to add their own vision and drive to an existing formula.

Craft proves to be the antithesis of standardization both at a functional and cultural level.

Object heterogenization? Could that be a process here?