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Nicolas Cheng World Nicolas Cheng Wide The CraftThe Noticing of : Workshop World Nicolas Cheng Wide The CraftThe Noticing of : Workshop Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Fine Arts in Crafts at HDK – Academy of Design and Crafts, Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg, Sweden ArtMonitor doctoral dissertations and licentiate theses no. 75 ArtMonitor is a publication series from the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, University of Gothenburg, www.konst.gu.se /artmonitor © Nicolas Cheng 2019 isbn : 978-91-7833-610-4 ( printed version ) isnb : 978-91-7833-611-1 ( digital version ) http://hdl.handle.net/2077/61708 Graphic design : Magnus Andersson Photos : Nicolas Cheng, if not stated otherwise Proof reading : Chris Wayment Printed by : Billes Tryckeri AB, Mölndal Abstract title : World Wide Workshop : The Craft of Noticing language : English keywords : Craft, jewellery, situated making, noticing, care, empathy, postindustrial, world wide workshop. isbn : 978-91-7833-610-4 ( printed version ) isbn : 978-91-7833-611-1 ( digital version ) http : //hdl.handle.net/2077/61708 In my research, I consider craft as a discipline that is extremely elastic in terms of propositions and positions. Today craft exists in a highly dynamic space — what I will refer to as the World Wide Workshop — and is essential for noticing, caring, mending and negotiating the complex relationships that individuals and communities have with their sociopolitical, economic and natural environment. By moving away from the self-reliance implied by traditional studio-based craft practice, I use situated making and situated learning together with and in re- sponse to others, as methods that enable me to pay attention and respond to my surroundings, and to observe connections and entanglements offered by craft — what I will refer to as a craft of noticing. This thesis considers craft’s role and potential in a world that is interconnected, globalised, and disrupted by human-caused phenomena. The research focuses, firstly, on understanding how craft can be both a connector and a method for noticing, and for problematising complex global production and economic issues in today’s postindustrial society. I approach craft as both a physical but also a virtual entity and explore where and how craft-based disciplines are learned, passed on, practised, and shared. Secondly, I look for ways craft can play a strategic role in revealing hidden histories and behaviours. In the process, I have observed how the awareness of entanglement in a complex world system, where it is no longer possible to think in terms of opposites or dichotomies, challenges an anthropocentric worldview and decentralises the human in our relationships to nature and to material resources. Through my own methodological propositions and personal reflections on making within the realms of contemporary craft and jewellery, the thesis aims to build from the craft of noticing ( Tsing 2015 ) to propose actions of response-ability ( Haraway 2016 ) in the service of a praxis of care and resurgence in a time of environmental crisis. My practice questions our roles and response-abilities as makers in an entangled, damaged world and attempts to move away from a linear extract-produce-discard model to a more circular approach ( Tsing 2005, 2015 ; Haraway 2016 ), thus testing the possibilities offered by a harvest-care-remediate model. Below is a list of both individual and collaborative projects from my artistic practice that are discussed in the thesis. Terroir ( 2015 ) — Individual work, exhibited at : The Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy in Amsterdam ( NL ), duo exhibition, Terroir, 2015. From Landscape to Timescape ( 2016 ) — Individual work, exhibited at : Easy !upstream Contemporary Art Space, Munich ( DE ), group exhibition — ( IM )PRINT, 2016. From Landscape to Timescape : The Floor ( 2017 ) — Individual work, exhibited at : Konsthantverkarna, Stockholm ( SE ), duo exhibition — Friction, Resonance, 2017. The Doorstopper ( 2017–18 ) — Individual work, exhibited at : Konsthantverkarna, Stockholm ( SE ), duo exhibition — ­Friction, Resonance, 2017 ; RIAN Design Museum, Falkenberg ( SE ), solo exhibition, 2019. Filament of Surplus ( 2017–18 ) — Individual work, exhibited at : RIAN Design Museum, Falkenberg ( SE ), solo exhibition, 2019. Gold Rush ( 2016 –18 ) — Collaboration work part of Conversation Piece, exhibited at : Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch ( NL ), group exhibition — CULT, 2016 ; Maurer Zilioli Contemporary Arts in Munich ( DE ), duo exhibition — Gold Rush, 2017 ; Konsthantverkarna, Stockholm ( SE ), duo exhibition — ­Friction, Resonance, 2017 ; ALCOVA, Milan Design Week ( IT ), group exhibition — Device People, 2018 ; Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo ( NO ), group exhibition — ­Everyone Says Hello, curated by Lars Sture, 2019 ; Pinakothek der Moderne, Die Neue Sammlung — ­Design Museum ( DE ), group exhibition — ­Schmuckismus, curated by Karen Pontoppidan, 2019. Craft Remediation ( 2018 –19 ) — Individual work, exhibited at : Barklund & Co., Stockholm ( SE ), solo exhibition — Craft Remediation, 2019 ; RIAN Design Museum, Falkenberg ( SE ), solo exhibition, 2019. Table of Contents Introduction 11 Research Context 12 Aims, Methods, and Research Questions 16 Thesis Structure : Chapters, Key Concepts, Themes, Projects Chapter One Unfamiliar Familiar 29 Looking Back to Chinoiseries : Background and Research Interests 33 Craft Realities in Contemporary China 35 Entering the Workshop of the World — Between Flattery, Imitation and Exoticism : Chinoiserie as Reproduction of the Self from the Reflections of the Other 37 Stimulus Diffusion — Unfamiliar Familiar 39 Additive Method of Remaking 40 Subtractive Method of Unmaking 43 From Landscape to Timescape — The Floor 49 The Necessity of Unlearning One’s Learning 54 Situated Learning, Situated Making 58 Diffractive Methodology 62 Summary and Introduction to Chapter Two Chapter Two Craft as Facilitator : Creative Economy 69 Terroir 76 Google Earth and the Local, Self-Organised Network 79 Craft as Connector 82 Do It with Others 83 Crafting Neighbourhoods — Made in Şişhane 85 Re-Crafting Neighbourhoods : the case studies of Theaster Gates’s ­ practice in the South Side of Chicago and Design Lab Skärholmen 91 The Reemergence of Craft in the Digital Age 94 Craft Dissolving — Craft Becoming 96 The Van der Kelen-Logelain Institute, Brussels 100 Slöjd Education in the Nineteenth Century 102 Fredrik Ingemansson’s Friday Techniques 105 Barry X Ball’s Masterpieces 106 Morehshin Allahyari’s Material Speculations : ISIS 108 Summary and Introduction to Chapter Three Chapter Three Maintaining and Caring — Making the Invisible Visible 115 The Horizontal 118 Scraping the Surface 119 Whose Labour, Whose Craft ? 124 Theaster Gates’s Horizontal Surface 126 Cleaning Chores : From the Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969 ! to the Staff at Casco — Office for Art, Design and Theory 128 Praxis of Care : Ursula K. Le Guin’s Metaphor of the Carrier Bag 130 Don’t Steal the Kil : The Doorstopper 137 What is Discarded When Something is Made ? 140 Summary and Introduction to Chapter Four Chapter Four Response-able for a Sustainable Future 147 Bound to the Ground — From Anthropocene to Chthulucene 151 Crafting as a Way of Connecting and Playing String Figures 154 Domestic and Urban Mining — Gold Rush 165 Filament of Surplus 168 Waste Matter 174 Craft Remediation 179 Local Matter — Vinterviken 182 Remediation and Making Process 184 Caring for Waste Matter — Extended to the Community 187 Conclusion of Chapter Four Conclusion 195 Concluding Discussion 197 On the Impossibility of Knowing : Reflection on the Limitations of the Research Approach in Craft 200 Craft Contribution to Present and Future Communities of Practice 202 Suggestion for Further Research 205 Svensk sammanfattning 222 Acknowledgements 223 References 226 Image Credits 11 Introduction Research Context My artistic practice focuses on craft and material research ; it is informed by the subject of jewellery but is not limited to it. I aspire to an openness and cross-pollination between disciplines and an elastic attitude as a maker informed by my interdisciplinary back- ground which spans interior architecture, product design, craft and jewellery. I am interested in boundary crossing, in merging different knowledge, skills, and tools. This attitude has affected the way I understand craft, moving away from the self-reliance implied by traditional studio-based craft practice, and towards an understanding of craft as a discipline that in itself is extremely elastic in terms of propositions and positions : a craft that is always in flux1 and in a supplemental2 position. The same qualities ( elastic- ity, adaptability, fluidity ) apply to what the space of craft — where and how craft is learned, produced, made, known, discussed, passed on — may look like today. As part of my research, I set out to understand how the post- industrial context3 affects my practice as a craft and jewellery artist. I am also interested in the ways in which craft-based disciplines are practised and disseminated today. How is the ideology, mean- ing, and potential of craft discussed in a postindustrial context ? When referring to a postindustrial context, I take into account in particular questions raised by the impact of digital technologies on the ways we make, communicate, share, and produce knowledge. I also consider the postindustrial landscape ( e.g., production sites, brownfields ) where I situate parts of my research, such
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