In an era in which we are fumbling for sustainable socially and environmentally adapted perspectives, craft is emerging as an increasingly important form of knowledge. Contemporary craft, as we discuss within the Master’s programme CRAFT!, is open to a diverse range of active practitioners who investigate approaches to materiality, the body and various forms of production based on the individual, society and history.

Some of the degree projects for this year’s CRAFT! programme revolve around issues of whose gaze forms who. Irrespective of whether these issues are applied to the relationship between humans and animals, patriarchal structures or understanding the human impact on our planet, as formulated in the term Anthropocene, they investigate how our human interface with the world around us can be defined and understood. Other projects take as their starting point the idea of production and consumption as an ideology, as the enduring narrative for our age and future, and how the accumulation of memory in material culture can be manifested in various forms of an archive. We are made aware of how this creates our material present, as well as how it has been used to render invisible stories and identities.

This year’s degree projects demonstrate that the crafts concept at CRAFT! finds itself in an incredibly expansive phase in which students are contributing to broadening the concept in ways both surprising and dynamic. For this, we as professors at CRAFT!, would like to sincerely thank this year’s graduates!

Anders Ljungberg
Professor at CRAFT!