Editorial: Entanglements of craft: between nature, culture and economy

Townsend, Katherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2212-2511, Potter, Gemma ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1033-3787 and Pagett, Beth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-0247-2711 (2024) Editorial: Entanglements of craft: between nature, culture and economy. Craft Research, 15 (2). pp. 183-189. ISSN 2040-4689

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Abstract

This issue features a range of contributions which reflect on how engagement in craft practices that are entangled with nature, economy and place allow both individuals and communities to be sustained culturally, socially and economically. Anthony Rausch examines how craft can represent both ‘cultural commodity’ and ‘cultural economy’ through his study of Japanese Tsugaru Nuri lacquerware. In their exploration of Khatwa appliqué among craftswomen in India, Sweta Rajan Sharma, Toni Sharma and Meenakshi Gupta uncover how craft can facilitate socio-economic empowerment and provide opportunity to break away from regional patriarchal norms. The Craft and Industry report by Rena Mehta, Pallavi Singh, Toolika Gupta and Madan Meena presents an ethnographic study and design intervention to sustain Kalbelia quilt-making in Rajasthan, India. Leonardo Hidalgo Uribe explores bio-colourant foraging in southern Finland, framing dyeing as a place-making practice that is dependent on closely attuned human–environment relations. This issue’s cover features a collage image created by Hidalgo Uribe during his fieldwork in Finnish forests. Related to this theme, Urs Dierker reviews the BioColours 2024 conference held at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in June 2024, which presented multidisciplinary perspectives of future visions for bio-colourants. Human and nature entanglements are further explored in Aysenur Ceren Asmaz and Nizam Orçun Önal’s portrait of Taiwanese Australian contemporary ceramic artist Ruth Ju-Shih Li, whose raw clay work is featured as this issue’s Remarkable Image. Māra Urdziņa-Deruma evaluates the development of an approach for structuring learning assignments of textile crafts for students of design and technology at the University of Latvia. Nithikul Nimkulrat reviews the book Prairie Interlace: Weaving, Modernisms, and the Expanded Frame, 1960–2000, edited by Michele Hardy, Timothy Long and Julia Krueger. Whilst Kärt Summatavet reviews the book Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba: Regional Yemeni Jewelry by Marjorie Ransom, Bethany Turner-Pemberton reviews the exhibition Collecting Innovation: Innovative Collecting.