Craft As A Socially Aware Nostalgic Practice: Re-Envisioning A Positive Future

Abstract

Nostalgia is part of the narrative of craft; like all narratives it is ideological. The nostalgic narrative of craft is a utopian one, one that not only cannot exist but that has never existed. The romanticised nostalgic Crafts ideal is seen as proposing a way of life with a particular value, one which places value on the everyday rather than the sublime, one which overcomes the alienation of the contemporary world, one which values the human-sized approach. This narrative is not negative in itself; but seen in the sentimental light into which nostalgia can drift, it can place craft in a position of privilege or of withdrawal from the world, as William Morris found to his despair.

But if we critically examine what our nostalgic responses to craft tell us about what we want from life, we can use this information as a catalyst for actions, practices that transform our present and start the process of preparing for a climate changed and post peak oil future. Svetlana Boym divides nostalgia by its intended effects into reconstructive, allied to the longing for an invented, unified past and reflective nostalgia, which is inconclusive; it acts as a question. She says nostalgia is the idiom of exile; cultural and biological biophilia seem to propose that we as humans feel exiled from the natural world. We are also exiled from each other. This paper examines the role of craft in bridging gaps between ourselves and nature and between ourselves and each other, and in using nostalgia as a focus for these explorations. In looking towards the past, could craft engage with wider contemporary critical debates? In showing what we feel we are missing from the past in our present society, might we use nostalgia as a tool for envisioning how we would prefer a new society to be, post peak oil and in a time of climate change?

John Michael Greer proposes that a post peak oil future may well look very similar to the Middle Ages. How we might we embrace the potential scenario of loss of our 21st century comforts and ease, and move towards the future with enthusiasm and excitement? The idea of nostalgia as a constructive tool is related to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming-minority; when “a people is missing” you create a space for that people to exist. A people is missing that can make a considered, positive transition to a future altered by peak oil and climate change.

But there are some craftspeople who are taking a knowing approach to the use of nostalgia. Those who practice crafts in this way are not un-knowingly nostalgic; they are using it as an envisioning tool. This paper will use currrent examples of craft work to explore whether reconstructive nostalgia can be converted or diverted to reflective nostalgia, and how this repositioning of craft to a more socially aware and productive force in society might already be occurring.

Conventional critical and theoretical analysis, even that produced by makers, has tended to underplay or ignore the centrality of this physical embodiment, unintentionally treating the body as a theoretical construct rather than an experienced living reality. The presentation/paper will address itself to the audience’s hands and bodies as much as their minds.