It’s no coincidence that a new wave of interest in craft is gaining momentum as the iPhone approaches its 20th birthday. As we become increasingly digitally native, we search out knowledge, experiences and objects that connect us with the real world and what makes us human. What could be more grounding and joyful than to look to exceptional human skill and creativity, material knowledge and intent?
Having grown up in a home where the whoosh and clack of a loom was the soundtrack, leading London Craft Week (11-17 May) feels like a full-circle moment for me. The festival celebrates the makers and the making, and so the experiences on offer are truly unique and multi-sensory. Take Hong Kong charity Crafts on Peel’s ‘Creative Cross-Pollination: The Future of Crafts’ as one example. This exhibition, featuring live demonstrations, will give visitors the opportunity to discover the kind of skill, creativity and time being invested into material and technical innovation in craft.
Elaine Yan Ling Ng, the founder of The Fabrick Lab, and Chinese embroiderer Wang Xinyuan spent a month developing a technique for embroidering silk onto metal, inventing the ability to sculpt with an entirely new material. Elsewhere, Anson Lai’s Dragon Mark and Cheung Lee explore the possibilities of new surfaces created with 3D printing and the application of gold leaf, while Naam Yu applies the precision of digital fabrication and traditional metalworking skills to galvanised iron to create kinetic sculptures.
Craft and technology are two sides of the same coin: there would have been no printing press without goldsmithing techniques, no computers without looms, and no space travel without ceramics. I like to remember this when thinking about the role human making will play in a future defined by AI; technology is advancing rapidly, but it has always needed us. Celebrating and investing in the makers of today and tomorrow makes it more likely that it will continue to.
As we head into the late 2020s, we might worry that we are forgetting how to make things, and it’s true that some of our heritage skills are endangered. And yet there is much cause for optimism too, as craft is increasingly receiving the recognition it has always deserved. The past few weeks alone have seen the launch of the British Cræft Prize, as well as the announcement of new London Craft Week sponsors, JW Anderson and Sotheby’s.
Embracing change and celebrating craft is much more than a trend – it is an intentional focus on surfacing the world of craftspeople that has existed all this time, because we need to support and honour makers now more than ever. Craft has always been about making the things we need and want using available materials, tools and techniques (however increasingly high-tech), and this will not change; preserving the skills and knowledge of the past, while also looking to the tools of today and tomorrow. It is foundational to the future we want to create. londoncraftweek.com
