Themes

Despite the intersecting areas of academic introspection and the interwoven nature of disciplinary contributions in contemporary scholarship, we have identified some areas of discourse for the Triennale Open Call. These include themes of individual and collective self-making that characterize the phenomenon of a Triennale, whilst inviting broad conceptualizations of craft across intertextualities; metaphorical understandings of sites, objects, and artefacts of memory; and largely seeing that “modern craft has a bibliography as rich and varied as many other cultural phenomena, if we take the time to find it.” ⁷



Some over-arching themes for the Open Call are:

Retelling everyday practices of making ⁸

Preserving material culture within the context of “the broader conceptualizations of craft”⁹

Craft-oriented histories of travel and migration

The branding and marketing of traditional cultural expressions¹⁰

Phenomena referred to as the ‘poetics of the handmade’¹¹

The inner processuality of craft - making as a method of autobiographical inquiry

Practices of resilience and protest through handiwork

Collectivizing of sentiment through patterns reminiscent of resilience – what do you do when the only memory you have left of your collective self is a visually intricate pattern?

Craft not merely as a cultural phenomenon that is attended by the anxieties, hopes, failures, and insights that make (it) worthy of study¹² – but also as a living and dynamic set of practices continually in discourse with the wider world around them

Poetry/Indigenous Verse/Writerly Speculation as an idiom for modern craft

Multiple geographies¹³ and historical periods when craft was consciously conceived of/framed as opposed to mass-produced, mass-disseminated, and mass-circulated objects

Multivocality and animating the cultural space of the city in relation to processes of making

References:

Claudia Sbrissa (2008) Poetics of the Handmade, The Journal of Modern Craft, 1:2, 303-306, DOI: 10.2752/174967808X325587.

Editorial Introduction. (2008). The Journal of Modern Craft, 1(1), 5–11. 
https://doi.org/10.2752/174967708783389869

Johnsson, Daphne Zografos. “The Branding of Traditional Cultural Expressions: To Whose Benefit?” In Indigenous Peoples’ Innovation: Intellectual Property Pathways to Development, edited by Peter Drahos and Susy Frankel, 147–64. ANU Press, 2012. 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hfgx.13

Kelley Totten (2024) Craft Knowledge and Performance Through Fiber Arts at the John C. Campbell Folk School, The Journal of Modern Craft, 17:2, 125-137, DOI: 10.1080/17496772.2024.2345536.

Editorial Introduction, (2008) The Journal of Modern Craft, 1:2, 179-180, DOI: 10.2752/174967808X325488.