Aesthetic dialogues: a conversation between hands and industry
2012 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis [Artistic work]
Abstract [en]
Working in the field of arts, crafts and design for the last 8 years, my interest in functional objects created by hand which tell a story has evolved. I believe that the hand of the craftsperson and industrial methods, when merged together can create interesting beautiful objects. As a maker/designer I appreciate theaesthetics of both the craft world and the industrial world. I envision that in the future,industrial produced products will include parts made by a craftsman’s hand and vice versa.
This interest in combining two worlds arises from my multiculturalbackground. With my father being from Surinam and my mother from Holland,I pose the question if it would be possible to craft a breed ofmulticultural objects that show the best of both worlds.Over the past three years during trips to Ghana and Morocco, I have observed alternative methods of hand making which have fascinated and inspired me.In these countries the makers utilize alternative forms, materials and technicalsolutions from their environment to create functional objects employed through out their daily lives. This aspect of hand made functional objects for survival resonates with me.
On the other hand the world of the industrial mass-produced objectsappeals to me too. I appreciate the precise simple aesthetics and subtle detailscreated by the machines that manufacture them. During my research I discovered thatthere are many differences between both the craft world and the world of industrialproduction, the most notable being the removal of the human touch and the body and mindconnection to the work.
With the rapid growth of technology, industrial objects are designed and pumpedout at a fraction of the time similar objects would take a craftsperson to make, and of course, at a fraction of the cost too.Not to take into account the years the crafts person spends studying in order to acquire the skills necessary to make the object in question. Sadly people are slowly losing contact with the processes of making objects by hand. Refrencing the work of designers Christien Meindertsma and Atelier NL, I will investigate this disconnection between peoples growing unwareness of the sources of materials and the way objects are made.I strongly believe that we should approach the future of making, by sharing the tried and tested skills and knowledge of craft with industry and start using new combinations. Kathryn Hinton and Lenneke Langenhuisen are two examples of artists that wrestle with and visualized this correlation between crafts and industrial production in their work.
In my opinion this cross-pollination of disciplines will broaden the field of corpus.It is where new ideas, solutions and processes can be found. In short, by taking the goodness from each discipline and mixing it up, we can create “new” Corpus with “Interdisciplinary ” ‘DNA’.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2012. , p. 57
Keywords [en]
corpus, crafts, design, hands, industry, interdiciplinary, craftsman, workmanship, plastics, cross-pollination
National Category
Design
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:konstfack:diva-3635OAI: oai:DiVA.org:konstfack-3635DiVA, id: diva2:529634
Educational program
Jewellery + Corpus (Ädellab/Metal, Master)
Uppsok
Fine Art
Supervisors
Examiners
Note
The full thesis contains copyrighted material which has been removed in the published version
2013-02-082012-05-302013-02-08Bibliographically approved