The title of my solo curatorial project is Make / Learn. I thought this theme would explain what I wanted to say about the meaning and outcome of ‘sustainable craft education’. Nevertheless, I think I need to go further to define and explain ‘Make’ and ‘Learn’. This process will clarify what we are doing and what the purpose is.
Initially, I got the idea from my article ‘Keeping Craftsmanship in Community Practice’. It is well known that craftsmanship has received attention in contemporary art exhibitions, but the educational development of craftsmanship needs more curatorial projects to promote it. Therefore, my personal project wants to do more for this purpose.
Make
Although ‘Make’ has many meanings, I think of ‘Make’ as taking action so that you are sure that an event is happening and is real.
In the craft world, the term is widely defined as the individual and collective vision of a craft to perform a task. It is also the ambition and concern of the craft community to influence the community’s perception of craft positively and to start with ‘education at the bottom’. In addition, I think ‘Make’ also makes a separate space aimed at educating useful resources and case studies.’ Make’ is about advocacy, lobbying and influencing, and engaging stakeholders to support their own and others’ activities in the community.
Learn
Participants are to unlock interdisciplinary learning through craft-making and experimentation. They are to get knowledge or skill in a new subject or activity. I think it would be useful to create an independent temporary space in the community, for example, the Edinburgh Sculpture Studio. This curatorial project could invite craftspeople from the community to participate in educational practices. For example, ceramics, glass, woodcarving and masks. As I mentioned last week, sustainable craft materials. At the same time, as curator, I, the educator and the craftspeople discuss the details of the craft education programme together. I realised that the educational process that takes place in a studio is clear, useful and accessible to all.
Learn is a systematic and organised process in a specific community studio.
Make and Learn
To explore the value of craft education for 9-15-year-olds outside of school. Make’ and ‘Learn’ is a curatorial project that responds and corresponds to each other through a ‘make’ and ‘learn’ approach in which participants and sustainable craft.
The forces acting upon the process of learning by making needed a kind of circular depiction of a loop, because to come to a work there needs to be constant mouvement. Not a linear movement but circular.
[‘the process of making is not so much an assembly as a procession, not a building up from discrete parts into a hierarchically organised totality but a carrying on’] The torus expresses this movement.
