Urban. Interior. Craft.: A World in Making

Abstract

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, 2% of the global population lived in cities. Now in 2013 more than half the world’s population live in cities. By 2030, this will increase to at least 60% with significant growth happening in cities of developing countries and the emergence of meta-cities with 20 million inhabitants. The twenty-first century has been called ‘the century of the city’ by UN-HABITAT, the United Nations agency for human settlements.

This paper brings together three seemingly divergent concerns and practices to address this condition - urban, interior, craft. The paper will pose the role and contribution (and hence potential) of craft and interior design practices to the urban environment with a particular focus on the question of inhabitation and 'a world in making'.

From small to large-scale projects; from individuals to communities, an approach to the question of urban inhabitation is invoked. The paper will draw on research conducted through practice and situated in the disciplines and fields of craft and interior design; a curatorial practice which values craft as a way of working and thinking in relation to practices of interiorization and spatial-temporal designing; where craft brings a particular attention, sensitivity and mode of working (an ethics) to questions of inhabitation and urban environments; a practice engaged with ideas of making and materiality where there is a sense of hand(s) in making, and an attention to and valuing of this in relation to modes of inhabitation and cities.

What might a craft sensibility bring to urban inhabitation? What of an expanded idea of craft practice as a way of working and thinking which addresses spatial and temporal urban conditions?

The paper will focus on two curatorial/editorial projects: an exhibition titled Urban Interior Occupation held in a gallery dedicated to craft and a call for a special issue of a journal dedicated to craft – titled A World in Making. Cities. Craft. Design. In the first project, a research group composed of various disciplines and titled ‘Urban Interior’ took over a craft gallery through performances, actions, changes, sound, smell, thoughts, image, discussions, presentations, night and day; redistributing and enfolding outside and insides, individuals and collectives. The gallery became arranged by acts of crafting as distinct from craft artefacts, by process rather than outcomes; a space of work and worked space. With the second project, a call for journal papers focused on the conjunction between craft and the urban environment attracted submissions that engaged the practices of jewellery, tapestry, urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture with cities.

Each project made connections with craft as a practice involved in a world of making - making futures through making. ‘The thing is what we make of the world. … It is our way of dealing with the plethora of sensations, vibrations, movements, and intensities that constitute both our world and ourselves’ (Elizabeth Grosz The Thing).