“The term souvenir may have an unfortunate veil of commercialisation drawn over it due to mass tourism but at its root, it is literally about memory and recollection. A souvenir is so much more than useful or beautiful; it is a loved object laced with emotional associations. This collection of new Irish souvenirs carefully explores this thinking, filtering it through the local context, embracing the subtleties of the land, weather, histories and people.It is a gathering of objects with meaning and depth that softly speak of a time and place.”
A project called the souvenirs project comissioned irishdesign2015.
“We want to inspire and show them that everything is possible if they think differently. With an estimated population of more than 2.6 million people, transportation is an important thing in Taipei. By letting them rethink the way we move, and offer simple building materials, something new and original might grow.”
In collaboration with craftsmen in Malawi, Studio Super Local designed a complete collection of hospital products. All made with locally available materials and techniques.
bottle-up is a project based in Zanzibar which developed a way of using the glass waste for the production of design items sold to tourists for generating financial support for the local communities. It shows the creative collaboration between dutch based designers and local craftsman.
made in scorlewald is a collaboration between Scorlewald (institute with workshops for handicapped people) and Studio RoSmit (designer Roland Peter Smit). The brand shows products that reflect their makers opportunities in terms of creation; a unique handprint of the products creator.
Collectie Veenhuizen is a journey to a province city in the Nehterlands in which the history of the artifical planned, now shrinking city is discovered. Different participants develope different projects for researching, experiencing, creating and communicating the old and new identity of the city and its citizens.
The personal value of the object. Object by Kranen/Gille for Zuiderzee museum in Enkhuizen. It illustrates the museum’s central task: to preserve and treasure.
Crafts Council Nederland (CCNL) is the Dutch version of what is already indispensable for decades in England and many other countries: a platform for contemporary craft. CCNL develops programs and activities where teaching, connecting, inspiring and developing are the central themes. Traditional techniques are given a new life; they are translated and decoded to prevent them from disappearing. And to use them as innovator and economic stimulus for the creative sector.
The Netherlands has always had a wonderful portfolio in the area of expertise of the creative crafts, and it still plays a major role in fashion, design, architecture and art. But how do we ensure that role of craftsmanship in the future? The platform Crafts Council Nederland collects and shares knowledge, presents best practices and makes connections between artists, disciplines, education and the public. For a viable creative industry, now and in the future.
Authenticity, craftsmanship and originality
The word 'craft' evokes positive associations such as honesty, authenticity, sincerity, humanity and security. It refers to the good old days, when we were still seen as an individual and the mass industry had not yet degraded us to anonymous consumers. The traditional manufacturing of products represents positive values such as autonomy, job satisfaction and pride. The renewed interest in the craft is associated with an impending demise of specialist skills, experience and knowledge. For several years, the government is also paying attention to the crafts. Economic studies have shown that in the coming period, hundreds of thousands of artisans in the Netherlands will be needed.
What are the activities of the Crafts Council Nederland:
Craftsmap, a digital platform that shows the "who-what - where" of the creative craft on a high-level: craftsmen, specialist museums, education etc.
Dutch Darlings, a competition that encouraged makers to design new Dutch souvenirs based on traditional techniques. The competition encouragds product innovation and public participation and called to show the richness of our traditional culture. Presentation of the results took place at the Dutch Design Week in October 2014.
Urban Crafts is a project in which a new generation of artists is presented, the Urban Crafters. This new generation will be connected to the older generation of craftsmen through mutual transfer of knowledge and expertise.
Master classes, workshops and educational programs are presented on a digital platform where masters transfer knowledge to people (professionals and amateurs) who want to learn the tricks of the trade. A separate program will be set up for primary education.
Presentations, exhibitions and craft routes
Advice and research
Publicity for the Dutch crafts in the Netherlands and abroad
Development of a more efficacious sharing economy will require constraining expansion of mediated micro-entrepreneurship and serialized rental in favor of modes consistent with communitarian provisioning. Fortunately, the last year has given rise to a few interesting propositions and many innovative social enterprises (first reported by Shareable in “Owning is the New Sharing”) with the potential to steer us in a more democratic and accountable direction. Especially notable is a recommendation by Nathan Schneider and Trebor Scholtz urging workers to become owners under the aegis of what they call platform cooperativism. The movement they intend to catalyze through an upcoming event in New York City calls for a deep reconfiguration of the sharing economy premised on producer collaboration and a vision of progressive economic transformation. And Schneider and Scholtz are correct to counsel urgency. Decisive action is indeed necessary before the current VC-backed frontrunners solidify impregnable monopolies in their respective markets. In moving toward platform cooperativism, the availability of open-source software like Sharetribe, which enables social entrepreneurs to easily create new sharing networks is likely to be an important new development.
How Platform Cooperativism Can Accelerate Sustainable Consumption
Diario, Spanish word for diary and everyday, is a brand that searches, recollects and redesigns unique and everyday objects from the place.
Designer Moisés Hernándes comes from Mexico.
Diario is a social, cultural, curatorial and design project of Mexican objects. Moisés Hernándes travels around Mexico looking and understanding the stories behind those objects and at the same time he rediscovers places, people, materials, techniques, textures and colors.
In the initiative Изплети топлина (‘knit warmth’) of the Има начин Foundation is running for the fourth year, organizing volunteers to knit warm hats, scarves and gloves for homeless people. Knitters can work from home or join in the public events where skills are shared and materials are provided.
The concept is easy. “fadenwerk” is a club that unites the joy of handcrafting and working togehter with a modern concept. They offer the realisation and production of sample pieces or small series of knitted and crocheted goods.
“A group of designers, from Design Academy Eindhoven visited tanneries workshops and factories throughout the Netherlands and Istanbul, documenting the roll craftsmanship plays in the leather industry. The aim of this film narrative is to broaden the perception of craftsmanship. Though they still occupy a romanticized, and nostalgic part of our imagination, the craftsman has taken on a new role within society that requires the same values by which we define the craftsman of the past.”
crafted in istanbul documents the existing crafts in istanbul to preserve the traditional culture of turkish handcrafting. By this it opens the discussion for its applicability to the existing design system.
found objects creates products with an anonymous design to reach the social goal of integration of refugees by producing local products based in vienna.
