Conference programme

This session will explore the underexploited potential of makers as leaders. High-quality leadership is vital if the crafts are to address the global challenges facing the sector, as explored in this conference. However, many (perhaps especially Western) craft practitioners might be sceptical of the very idea of leadership, associating it with an ideology of “managerialism” that emphasises the hierarchies and control systems that have 

characteristically governed labour in mass production industry - precisely those aspects of work many makers wish to escape in pursuing craft, (even when they might unwittingly replace these with the self-exploitative practices that are a feature of much independent work under late capitalism). This session will examine the issue of good leadership in craft, particularly the value of creative maker practices in developing qualities that contribute to good leadership, such as empathy, dialogue and collaboration through teams and communities of practice - qualities capable of championing progressive social development through the sorts of intelligent problemsolving and innovation that makers are already exhibiting through their work. 

This session will explore the ways in which craft practitioners are proactively exploring sustainably engaged practices and projects. These initiatives might involve digital design and production methods, new materials innovation and/or the pursuit of localised sourcing. They might also incorporate cradle-to-cradle design-and-make strategies, and associated approaches – such as re-cycling, up-cycling, sharing, make and mend, and maintenance – to confront the throw-away culture and planned obsolescence resonant of many contemporary consumer production systems. They might also embrace the longer-term systems level approaches associated with Transition Design, which, through the lens of a “cosmopolitan localism" typically seeks to analyse the interconnectedness of social, economic and natural systems as starting points for appropriate design-led strategies. As such, this session will not simply look to locate the issue in terms of individual material practices, but also at the broader level of how cultures of production and consumption need to adjust to new understandings of value and meaning-making in the context of the climate crisis and sustainability agendas.    

This session will explore the current condition of craft in industry, and the idea that modern political-economy needs to embrace small-scale producers as an urgent and progressive project in its own right. In the West and other developed countries, ideas of modern craft developed in opposition to industrial mass production but are once again being publicly celebrated as a way of responding to global challenges. The context in Southeast Asia and other developing countries, is quite different, wherein craft is either seen as part of everyday living or a welcome addition to a community’s economic livelihood. Either way, technological innovations and consumer expectations appear to be driving change towards more design-led bespoke offerings, trends that are also impacting on large-scale production platforms, (as witnessed in the move from mass-production, to mass-production with options, to masscustomisation). As such this session explores the idea that forms of crafting are emerging as critical components of, and within, modern industry - an idea which calls into question many prevailing notions of industry on the one hand, and perhaps craft on the other, obliging us to recognise that we are looking at a spectrum of scales and behaviours in which regimes of smallscale neo-artisanal making and micro-manufacturing are attempting to innovate around technology, form, function, aesthetic meaning and social relevance, as part of the more nuanced regimes of production and consumption that are emerging today. 

This session will explore the use of digital platforms in maker practices, particularly the integration of digital fabrication processes into analogue working methods and systems of making. Many contemporary craft advocates understand craft to be an intelligent and directly engaged way to manipulate materials and processes, instead of a restricted range of manual techniques sanctified by tradition that dominated craft theory in the recent past. This more inclusive perspective acknowledges the validity of integrated manual practices and digital technologies that have become commonplace across the creative industries today. Of particular interest to this session is the act of translation between digital and analogue tools and procedures, including the ‘gaps’ – intended or unintended, productive or otherwise – that might emerge through such translations. As well as looking at the mixing of digital techniques and materials with analogue processes, the session is also interested in how makers might be experimenting with web-based digital platforms to coordinate forms of consumer customisation, and/or to build communities around collaborative and distributed design and micromanufacturing practices.  

This session will explore how artists-craftspeople and makers, both individuals and collectives, are developing craft as forms of social enterprise. These socially engaged initiatives represent a diverse range of activities that expand our ideas of what craft can be: from community regeneration and place-making activities, to craft-supported street activism, to processorientated public art performances, to craft collaborations in pursuit of environmental research, to projects helping to sustain mental health in diverse communities. While such projects often address ‘local’ issues, they simultaneously point to a global cross-cultural awareness of the common issues we face, and the influence of global technological knowledge dissemination. They also index the ways in which disciplinary boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred, fluid and receptive to diverse influences, trends that are perhaps reflected (at least in the West) in the way’s commentators will often vacillate between the term’s ‘artist’, ‘maker’, ‘contemporary crafts’, ‘design-to-make’, ‘neo-artisanal’, etc. 

The fundamental purpose of this session is to bring together individuals and institutions interested in fostering cross-cultural networks and partnerships capable of addressing the global challenges facing craft, as explored in this edition of Making Futures. These initiatives might be academically research orientated, or more developmental and knowledge-transfer focussed, or combinations of both. Either way, they will be interested in taking up the Making Futures agenda of examining and promoting contemporary craft and maker movements as ‘change agents’ through the progressive possibilities presented by the revival, development and promotion of the crafts sector globally, as discussed here in Cebu. The session will also explore the added value of working with partners and the challenges and success stories coming out of collaborations in different parts of the world; in short, the many ways in which makers are presenting, or narrating, new ideas of how we might understand and think about craft’s position in society. It is intended that the session will pave the way to the establishment of future partnerships amongst appropriately interested participants.  

These workshops will exemplify, through practical demonstration and example, a selection of approaches to the ideas and issues, materials and making processes, explored and discussed in the sessions outlined above. Analogue and digital, handmade or part machine-made, the workshops will show a number of makers and artisans communicating, by practical example, how they are adapting to new ideas or experimenting with traditional and contemporary emerging processes and materials to create new roles, forms and applications for craft.