‘Well-Being’ beyond ‘Well-Made’: Craft-Friendly Cases in South Korean Craft

Abstract

This paper explores current Korean cases in the craft sector focusing on cultural crafts products (CCP) through the idea of sustainability. For Suojanen, sustainability in the craft sector balances cultural, social, economic and ecological sustainability. This paper manifests these aspects through CCP of Korea. This paper illustrates what ‘cultural crafts products’ mean within the scope of craft as symbols playing a crucial role that resists cultural uniformity in globalization, and represents cultural identity via distinctive locality. In this paper, CCP is defined as a product combining cultural values and crafts, and a superior concept to tourism products, for both tourists and native people, aimed at improving their lives. Based on the concept of CCP which provides new values in sustainable craft, cultural, social, ecological and economic sustainability of craft is illustrated through in-depth interviews, observation, and literature study. This paper explores (1) neo-craft consumers, (2) harmony of CCP with cultural identity and environment, (3) Korean governmental support and (4) innovative approaches to interdisciplinary craft within a ‘craft-friendly’ frame.

Through the cases of Korean crafts, this paper concludes that craft must aim toward ‘people-centered sustainability’, reflecting our lifestyle for craft’s sustainable future. As a socially expanded activity, craft is now re-estimated beyond a well-made object, requiring craftspeople to be concerned with substantive matters in our ordinary lives as much as aspects of environmental friendly materials and innate value in craft. For social domiciliation of ‘craft-friendly’ sustainability, well-established consumer studies and research on CCP related to social needs and welfare in craft will become necessary.