Craft as Cross-Cultural Communication and Exchange

Abstract

The growing market for ethically produced goods provides an additional incentive for designer-makers to use ethically sourced materials. By sourcing new materials through sensitively-built, small-scale development projects, designer-makers in the developed world can have access to new, natural, socially and environmentally sustainable materials with distinctive aesthetics, while enabling makers in the developing world to increase their income by participating in global trade.

In order to source materials for my own craft practice as a designer-maker in accessories, I have established an alternative production model for craft materials: a small development project that considers environmental issues, design and product development, fair pay, quality of life and the institution of collective activities that build social capital amongst the women makers.

My methods have evolved through years of trial and error: less ones of pre-determined strategy and more ones of process. Serendipity, compromise, impulse, innovation and error – all integral to my creative practice – have in parts propelled, constrained, overcome and inspired the outcomes. Through the creative process, the agencies of both the makers any myself have been changed by the activities that have taken place and by the relationships developed. The results have been the development of a craft culture in a remote region of Uganda that incorporates both indigenous and innovatory handicraft techniques; the development of social relations created through work; and the enrichment of my own practice through a process of engagement and exchange.

If I initially set out to develop new, natural and sustainable craft materials for handcrafted accessories and interior products in as ethical manner as seemed possible, I have had to comprehend multiple and diverse factors in order to navigate the realities and complexities of working with new artisans in Uganda. The textile products we have developed together are hybrid or ‘pidgin’ products, representing both a cross-cultural communication and a means of exchange that hold relevance in both societies. Through research, field work and my own practice I have identified some of the factors to be considered by the designer-makers when sourcing new materials through a small-scale development project in a developing country, presenting the immense benefits and joys and the enormous challenges and constraints of working in this way.