Workshop 1: Craftwork as Problem-Solving

Abstract

My aim in coordinating a workshop on “craftwork as problem-solving” was to bring together a mixed group of designer-makers, architects, anthropologists, and researchers of craft to discuss problem-solving tactics and strategies employed by craftspeople. The call for papers invited presenters to explore the multiple kinds of intelligence involved in design and making, and the ways in which the intelligent practices that constitute craftwork and problem-solving are perceived and evaluated by makers themselves and by the societies in which they work.

Furthermore, workshop presenters were invited to consider the roles that society, culture and the environment play in forming and transforming the problem-solving strategies that makers engage in. These include, for instance, training regimes and formal educational background; access to tools, supplies and workspace; the limits and potentials of the physical body (including ageing, illness and injury); socialisation and cultural understanding (including perceptions of environmental and social sustainability); political and economic regimes; changing technologies, and the introduction of new materials. Problem-solving in craftwork also operates in relation to a wider arc of social and environmental concerns including green agendas and environmental sustainability, the desire for socially-beneficial engagement, and the pursuit of communal identity. In sum, problem-solving in design and making involves the ways in which these factors and concerns are interpreted through localised regimes of making and doing.