Longing for something is also a longing away from something. In the individualised society of today, with climate crises and econimical problems, people tend to long for togetherness. A wish for a change from a ‘me-­‐society’ towards a ‘we-­‐society’ is visual in many fields. Examples of this are that many people seek for collaborative solutions, to do more things together and collaborate.

I longed away from the individualized field of contemporary jewelry and corpus and decided to expand the field and to work together with costume designers for theatre. When doing this, I recieved questions like; “When working for someone else, is it then still art?” And “What can you gain and what can you give in collaborations like these? And what can you possibly loose?” I realized that many within the field didn’t have the same view on collaborations as I did. What was behind this and did I have to choose between contemporary craft and theatre?

This essay tries to examine these questions by looking at what is going on in the society and in the field of craft today, as well as showing examples of others who have made collaborations and of the reasons behind their choices, and thoughts and theories from practioners and theorists about collaboration, change and togetherness. This information is then used to analyze a case study of my own collaboration with costume designer Lena Lindgren, in the making of the costumes for the play “Den svenska apans 100 röda drömmar” at Turteatern in Stockholm during autumn 2013.

Through collaboration I wish to challenge my own habitual ways of working and maybe the field’s habitual ways of working and thinking. I feel that I do not have to choose between craft and theatre and I also don’t feel that I work for someone else. I work together with others and I grow and develop from doing so. I offer my specialized knowledge and way of doing things. There are perceptions that one could loose one’s individual voice in collaboration and there could be problems with authorship, ownership and compromising but these problems have not occured to me in this collaboration. With this essay I don’t suggest that everyone in contemporary jewellery and corpus or other crafts should collaborate outside of their field. But hope to draw attention to the importance of opening up the field for many different positions and that they all should be able to exist.