Social craft: Perspectives from the South

Introduction
The social turn has been the subject of much discussion in the visual arts. The initial framework
provided by relational aesthetics ​(Bourriaud 2002)​ has led to heated debate about the role of
participation in art, whether it is a goal in itself ​(Kester 2011)​ or a potential compromise of
artistic truth ​(Bishop 2012)​.

Now we are beginning to see this path explored in craft theory. In ​Art in the Making​, Adamson
and Byran-Wilson consider the social and political dimension of craft production: "We have
considered making as a social – not just a technical – process" ​(Adamson and Bryan-Wilson
2016)​. Theirs was a focus on the processes behind the scenes in craft production.

This chapter explores the social turn in craft from the other end in the production chain: its use.
With a focus on alternative uses of the handmade object, we will explore social and customary
functions that differentiates craft the condition of modern art.

This involves first identifying the studio model on which modern craft is based. According to
this framework, individual artists make unique works that are then sold in galleries. In this
process, creative expression results in a commodity to be exchanged in the market.

It can be argued that today other models are emerging for craft practice. This is partly based on
changes to patterns of consumption, as technology has enabled new immaterial platforms for
exchange, such as digital images in social media ​(Mason 2011)​. The project of being a consumer
is less about hoarding of things, such as a music CD collection, and more about connecting with
a shared library, such as the Spotify music streaming service. According to Sassen ​(1998)​, we
are witnessing a decline in the manufacturing sector and a rise in the service sector.

This dematerialisation is happening at the same time that cultures in the South are
re-introducing customary forms of exchange in which objects are valued more as gifts than
possessions. The value of objects is thus more determined by the social relations facilitated by
the exchange, rather than an abstract market value.

To take cognisance of this development, it is useful to look to the social sciences, particularly
anthropology, for an understanding of how handmade objects can be valued for their use in
connecting people together. It is not common to frame craft within the social sciences
particularly in the study of social life, such as anthropology and social psychology. In the late
nineteenth century, William Morris ​(1999)​ framed the arts and crafts movement in terms of a
broad socialist struggle. In the late twentieth century, feminism has been invoked when
attempting to revalue the domestic crafts ​(Fry 2014)​. But while the political dimension of craft
has been analysed, particularly in opposition to industrial and patriarchal social structures,
there has been less focus on the sociological understanding of the role of objects in social
relations.
Sociology
The social object figured in the birth of sociology through Durkheim's ​([1912] 1995)​notion of
totem. For Durkheim, the totem functioned as an emblem of the clan and can be seen as the
origin of religion. This understanding developed into the more abstract interest in kinship
systems by Levi-Strauss ​(1971)​. An alternative direction emerged in the work of Marcel Mauss
(1966)​, which considered the relational value in the object as gift. We see a contemporary take
on this in the analysis of debt by David Graeber ​(2011)​. His work is very important in the
classification of money as a social currency.

Colonialism has been a phenomenon of anthropological interest. The initial encounters by

European colonists and indigenous peoples often involved a mismatch in the value attached to
objects. This has been the focus of Pietz in his analysis of the fetish.

The concept of development behind colonisation entailed the commodification of objects that
previously had a ceremonial or ritual meaning. This has been important for supporting
traditional craft through tourism and export development. More recently Western designers
have been commissioning traditional artisans to make products for foreign markets ​(Murray
2013)​. This combination of capital and labour is usually hierarchical, following the Platonic
model that elevates the form above its material instantiation.

Recently in sociology there has been an attempt to broaden models for understanding social
relations that takes account of the Global South ​(Connell 2007)​. The argument is that sociology
as a discipline has been conditioned by its origins in the metropolitan north. It does not bring to
its centre unique elements of the South, such as colonisation. A similar southern perspective
could be applied to the crafts. This involves using the traditional uses of the object as a model
for the value of the object in the contemporary condition.

The first step in establishing the framework is contextualising modernity within a Western
system in a way that enables other modernities in different cultural contexts. Yoshimi ​(Takeuchi
and Calichman 2005)​ argued for a unique Japanese modernity. Boaventura Santos de Souza
(2013)​ extended this regional analysis this further by critiquing modernism as a form of violence
that abstracts value from its context. He looks to the holistic Indigenous ways of understanding
to develop a form of ecological knowledge. One of the key forms of abstraction is
commodification, in which the object’s meaning is reduced to its exchange value in the market.

In this chapter, we look to the social value that is otherwise lost in the process of
commodification. This is informed by a variety of disciplines, including social psychology and
anthropology.

The socialisation of craft involves returning to the basics of social activity, in particular the
morality of everyday life, as evident in the verbal phrases commonly used in interaction. These
phrases can be organised around the business of maintaining social relations through the
metaphor of a house. The processes of building, maintaining and repairing a habit offer a
formal framework for working through the range of social objects, developed to meet a variety
of needs.
Pre-modern value of craft
In pre-modern societies, the relationship of craft practice to the market was more indirect than
in modern capitalism. The guild provided a framework for the production of objects of intrinsic
worth. These masterpieces showed a competence in the essential skills necessary to gain
membership of the guild or academy. The Victoria & Albert Museum (“Cup | Jamnitzer,
Wenzel” 2016) contains a Columbine Cup that was made to obtain admittance to the
Nuremberg Goldsmith’s Corporation. A version of this exists today in the World Crafts Council
Award of Excellence, where craftspersons submit works for certification of craft quality, which if
successful are not returned to the maker but are retained in a collection.
IMAGE: Victoria & Albert Museum (“Cup | Jamnitzer, Wenzel” 2016) contains a Columbine Cup
In the feudal mythology of craftsmanship, the quest for perfection was often made with a
political or religious aim, such as golden salt-cellar made by Benvenuto Cellini for Francis I of
France. There are echoes of this in twenty-first century consumerism with the use of
“handmade with love” element of craft production. For instance, Mafi Timber Flooring markets
its products as “Handmade with love in Austria”. The accompanying narrative emphasises the
founders vision: “In 1992, Fritz Filafer’s gaze wandered from the ceiling to the floor…”
(“Handmade with Love” 2014) This value is consonant with the environmental standards and
feature of handmade irregularities, leading to the “massage sensation” of its floors.
This marketing is part of larger narrative around capitalism that identifies the locus of value in
individual “passion”. In a typical statement, CEO David Lucatch says “The people I have seen
achieve the greatest success in their professional and personal lives are passionate people that
lead, support, and mentor others with that ‘zeal and zest’ for the work and people,” (Smith
2014). Passion implies a motivation that goes beyond material gain.
This can be seen as a way of giving individual meaning to an otherwise reductive pursuit of
profit. It can be understood as an example of “affective labor” ​(Hardt 1999)​ that becomes more
important with the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy. Despite valuing
resources according to the exchange market, capitalism requires legitimation from outside that
very market. This applies to the studio model which contextualises craft in the art market.

Studio model
The emergence of the studio model in craft can be seen in a broader context of
commodification that is a core process in industrial capitalism. In the Marxist understanding of
industrial capitalism, products of labour are commodified:

“It is… this ultimate money form of the world of commodities that actually conceals, instead of
disclosing, the social character of private labour, and the social relations between the individual
producers.” ​(Marx 2008)

Studio craft may seem to avoid this process of commodification given the value it attaches to
the artist as producer. But this value is abstracted from the social context of the producer and
the larger ecology in which creation is possible. The fate of the object is then in the hands of
the market, where it is usually first presented for sale in an exhibition and then subject to
market forces when re-sold. By processing the object through the market, “the human subject
is displaced from its own material activity.” ​(White 2014)​ Production thus appears to be subject
to the forces of the market rather than the cultural values it embodies.

This Marxist critique of studio craft is similar to that applied in the visual arts. It offers a binary
opposition of market and social value. But there are a unique factors at play in the field of
studio craft that must be considered if we are to further develop its social dimension. A
methodology for understanding this was developed as a way of analysing the diverse interests
of the art jewellery field. The Art Jewelry Forum publication ​Contemporary Jewelry in
Perspective​ ​(Skinner 2013)​) laid out a spatial framework for understanding the value of jewelry
as art, which can be partly extended to other crafts. This model follows the movement of the
object through different spaces in which alternative interests are in play. Each space is signified
by its defining object: bench, plinth, page, drawer, body, street and world. The different
interests attached to each space include the personal experience of the maker (bench), its
display for close inspection separated from the outside world (plinth), the critical assessment of
its contribution to the field, particularly originality (page), place within a series of works as part
of an individual or institutional collection (drawer), use as ornament to engage with the user as
a physical being (body), role in presenting a public identity (street) and effect on the wide
ecological and social system (world). Critically, this model helps to recognise innovation in the
spaces where creative action might take place, particularly the street. It makes sense of a social
practice which sites the work in the street, yet still creates a product such as a video that finds
its way into the space of the plinth, and potentially the page and drawer.

In generalising this model to other crafts, there are particular spaces that seem more specific to
jewellery, such as body and street. In the case of ceramics, for instance, we might consider a
space of daily function (the table) as an equivalent to the body in jewellery.
This is an Actor Network Theory model ​(Latour 2005)​ based on a flat system for the circulation
of objects, in which each space with its own interests. This spatialisation of meaning does not
preempt a critical perspective, based on the specific interests. at play. But the methodology is
useful for opening up the field to the wide range of actors involved.
For our purposes here, we can locate the studio model for crafts in the shared spaces of bench,
plinth, page and drawer. This trajectory is parallel to the visual arts: an individual artist
produces an original creative work, mostly with their own hands (bench). This work is then
displayed for sale in a gallery where it is given a title (plinth). This enters the work into the
creative field, to which it can contribute (page). The work can then circulate in the archive,
where it can be borrowed from the artist, collector or museum for a future exhibition (drawer).
Implicit in this model is the commodification of the art work. On entry into the gallery system,
the work takes on a financial value which opens it to appropriation by the buyer. There are
sometimes compromises to the market, such as when the work is reserved for a collection, thus
preventing another individual buyer from purchasing the work. But the default is for the work
to be exhibited for sale in a gallery, at which point it has a financial value.
This exposes a contradiction in the studio model, as identified by Adamson and Byran-Wilson
(2016)​, “On the one hand, nothing damages an artist’s reputation more than the perception
that they are making work primarily to sell. On the other, artistic reputations are made by and
in the market. The artists who succeed financially are those who manage to have it both ways."
Accordingly, the studio model locks the bench and the plinth in an uneasy alliance. Work at the
bench strives for success on the plinth, while its fate in the gallery is predicated on the
assumption that it has been produced only for the bench.
The dominance of the plinth in studio craft can be critiqued on a number of levels. Capital has
its own internal logic which often differs from aesthetic values, particularly the enjoyment of
beauty. An extreme example of this is the growth of Freeports ​(“Über-Warehouses for the
Ultra-Rich” 2013)​, where art collections are stockpiled as investments, hidden from public view.
Similarly, the recurrent news story of a record price for European impressionist masterpieces
has little relation to its increased aesthetic worth. The plinth detaches the object from its use.
For our purposes, the aim is to extend focus into the social spaces in which crafted objects
circulate, which includes the street, the table and the shrine. This promises an extension of the
studio craft model such that its objects circulate beyond the gallery into the sphere of social
action. At this point, we need to reflect on what constitutes the “social”.

The social object

The “social” is understood here similar to the focus of micro-sociologists such as Erving
Goffman. This discipline attends to the conduct of social life, underpinned by the drive for
honour and respect. Goffman documents the “ritual organization of social encounters” that
determine agency in the world ​(Goffman 1969, 38)​.

Connecting with the body of research in microsociology grants a more complex account of the
social. By contrast with the individualistic nature of the studio model, it is easy to define the
social as the mere presence of other people. But a micro-sociological perspective takes into
account the different flows of connection that might be occurring.

Microsociology concerns itself with the familiar activity of social life. For the social object, this
can be mapped onto the most frequent verbal exchanges in everyday life. “Please” seeks a
favour, which is acknowledged with a “Thank you”. “You’re welcome” then cancels any debt on
the favour, and can also admit a newcomer into the group. “Sorry” admits responsibility for a
wrong. “Good luck” offers support in a prospective failure and pleasure in success. And “I
promise…” builds trust by staking a future commitment.

The architectural metaphor

To simplify matters, this collection of key verbal phrases can be ordered into three basic
operations in social relations: building, maintaining and repairing. The architectural metaphor
can be used here to see a parallel set of activities in the life of a home: its initial construction,
the regular maintenance such as housekeeping, and its repair where degraded elements need
to be removed and replaced. In parallel way, we focus here on establishing a social relation,
maintaining it over time, and dealing with situations where trust has been broken.
Building relationships
Despite its non-theoretical structure, the architectural metaphor enables us to introduce the
social into the craft sphere in a way that can help productively understand the function of
various social objects.

For creating relationships, the gift has been the most commonly referenced social object. As
analysed by Mauss ​(1966)​, societies are held together by a web of mutual debt and obligations.
The purpose of the debt is to establish an obligation that connects the giver and receiver.
Mauss’ key example of this was the kula cycle that occurs in the Trobriand Island ​(Malinowski
2007)​, in which different island communities maintain relationships through the exchange of
elaborately crafted shell necklaces. The anthropologist Graber ​(2011)​ built on this to establish a
framework for understanding money as a social currency, and offer a critique of global
capitalism which defines debt as an aberration.

In the modern context, it is rarely acknowledged that much of studio craft operates in the gift
economy. Its products are often purchased as gifts, such as for weddings, where the handmade
quality sends an appropriate message of the value that the giver invests in the relationship. This
is particularly the case for jewellers, for whom the engagement and wedding ring is a key part
of their social practice. As love tokens, these objects provide a material manifestation of
feelings. Commonly, the materials used are associated with eternal value, such as the use of
diamonds and symbols.

The instantiation of a relationship in the wedding ring has been the subject of occasional
reference in the contemporary jewellery field. Otto Künzli’s ​Necklace​ (1985–86) made from 48
used wedding rings, reflects the contrast between their enduring materiality and the fleeting
nature of personal relationships. In design, the love token has become a tool of social
engineering. The sharing platform AirBNB worked with Marc Newson to produce an
“acceptance” ring that signified a commitment to marriage equality ​(Rath 2017)​.

The promise can be seen as a foundational act of sociality. Arendt ​(1998)​ identifies two basic
modalities that form the “human condition”: to promise and to forgive. The promise offers an
“island of certainty” in a sea of unpredictability, around which social structures can be built.
While forgiveness offers a means of adapting to changed circumstances when the promises are
no longer relevant. The challenge of building trust is a key function of arts and letters:

We may trace it back to the Roman legal system, the inviolability of agreements and
treaties (pacta sunt servanda); or we may see its discoverer in Abraham, the man from
Ur, whose whole story, as the Bible tells it, shows such a passionate drive toward
making covenants that it is as though he departed from his country for no other reason
than to try out the power of mutual promise in the wilderness of the world. ​(Arendt
1998)

Besides legal codes, the core texts of mythology and religion often uphold the sacred nature of
the promise. In Hinduism, the catalyst for the main narrative of the Ramayana was the promise
by a King to allow his wife to choose his successor, which leads to obvious candidate Rama
being overlooked. The worth of a hero like Rama is judged by how he can keep his word,
despite the negative consequences. The various covenants that feature in Judaism reflect
agreements between God and the chosen people, such as the Noahic covenant (Genesis 9:8-17)
which interprets the rainbow as a pledge from God not to inundate the earth again. In the
Islamic religion, the 16th Surah “An-Nahl” of the Koran emphasises the importance to Allah of
keeping promises.

Beyond the legal system, in everyday social life, promises are marked by rituals. The most
common is a verbal action beginning with the words “I promise…” Sometimes a witness can be
invoked to underpin this, such as “As God is my witness…” or “I swear on my mother’s grave…”
Such verbal formulas mark off certain statements from the stream of social dialogue that is
otherwise non-binding. There are also some non-verbal actions that accompany the promise
statement, such as putting one’s hand on one’s heart or looking at the recipient in the eye.
Hand-shaking afterwards can seal the understanding.

The promise can be given additional substance through use of an object. In the legal system,
this function is performed by a sacred book, on which an oath-taker places their hand while
pronouncing their vow. For the more powerful global position of the President of the United
States, the choice of bible(s) on which to take the oath of office is often significant (​(Mettler
2017)​.

This oath object has pre-modern referents. The fetish that was the object of so much attention
by European anthropologists was the primary function as a truth-telling device. Research by
Pietz ​(1985, 1987, 1988)​ has revealed that the concept of the fetish arose during the process of
colonisation of sub-Saharan Africa, when European colonists attempted to break up traditional
systems of exchange in order link these societies to Western capitalist markets. Modern
capitalism is based on the freedom of objects to be bought and sold. However, traditional
objects such as fetishes were imbued with a sacred power that could not be converted into
economic value.

To counter this, indigenous Africans were represented as misunderstanding the value of

objects. On the one hand, they would overestimate the value of “trifles” and “trinkets” such as
nails and beads offered by the colonisers. And on the other, they would imbue their customary
objects with a childish magical power. This was interpreted by colonists such as the Dutch
Willem Bosman in the early eighteenth century as a conspiracy to sustain the power of priests
over the liberating influence of merchants. Pietz contrasts the colonial perspective with the
practice of slavery, which reduces individuals to the value of commodities. It also involves a
denial of the investment of meaning in objects that is central to Christianity, such as the
crucifix.

The more authentic meaning of the “fetish” is identified by Pietz as a truth-telling device used
in the administration of justice. The belief that this object had power to punish lies with illness
was bound up in a cosmological system that gave common meaning to the world. In this regard,
it is identical to the legal function of the Bible in Western culture.

There are also other less problematic social objects shared by Western and traditional cultures.
In Western culture, the crown is often synonymous with sovereignty: the individual king or
queen can be referred to as “the crown”, as in “crown land” to mean government owned
property. In the coronation ceremony, the authority that grants the power of the monarch is
symbolised by the person who places the crown on the appointee's head. Craftsmanship plays a
role in giving the crown as an object a singular value. The uniqueness of the gems and rarity of
workmanship enable the “crown jewels” to operate as a sign of exclusive power. Minor
versions of this can be found in tiaras worn by princesses of the royal court.

Key to function of the crown as a social object is that its life extends beyond that of its wearer.
It thus provides a material instantiation of the office that is passed down through a succession
of mortal bearers. In this sense it operates as an heirloom which can be transferred to
successive generations. Again, the Bible can function additionally as a family heirloom providing
a material link to ancestry.

There are equivalents in non-Western cultures such as the Māori concept of taonga. Mead and
Mead describe the qualities that enable an object to achieve this status:

The object given needs to fit into the category of taonga, that is, it must be highly prized
and preferably an heirloom. Greenstone objects, big or small, qualify as taonga because
greenstone itself is highly regarded throughout the Māori world. Heirlooms or objects
made of parāoa (whalebone) also qualify. Cloaks commonly feature as gifts and have
always been highly regarded. Tiki are especially favoured as gifts and this appears to be
the case whether they are heirloom items or recently made. The important factor is the
quality of workmanship and the symbolic value of the object. ​(Mead and Mead 2003)

Taonga can be seen as a subset of honorary objects. Like the crown, the value of taonga lies
partly in the history of its owners. But in addition, the taonga is an object with agency. There
are various rituals involved in treating the taonga with respect, such as prayers that are recited
to activate its powers.

The taonga has had an influence on artists in Aotearoa / New Zealand who have sought to
ground their work around this value. Areta Wilkinson has used taonga as one of several Māori
concepts that has informed the production of her work. Her recent work has confronted the
asymmetry between the sacred world of custom and the profane scene of studio craft, in which
art is made to be exhibited in public and sold on the open market.

Her recent jewellery work deals with this by taking photograms of sacred taonga, which are
then transformed into pendants. This process provides a distance that removes the sacred
nature of the original while still including reference to the source.

The photograms are representations—Wilkinson calls them ‘shadows’—of taonga, not

the taonga themselves, so there is some distance between the image and the original;
but these copies are also singular, not multiple, and they require the indexical trace of
the taonga to exist. They are like avatars of the taonga, moving out into the world in
ways that the taonga cannot, sharing their qualities but also attaining a kind of
uniqueness and independence from the taonga involved in their creation. ​(Skinner
2017)
IMAGE: Areta Wilkinson work

The heirloom has been a common means of transmission in traditional crafts. The phulkari from
the Punjab was embroidered by young women before marriage to be passed down through
their new family ​(Maskiell 1999)​. In Borneo heirloom jars (​gusi)​ were made as containers for
ancestors and used for important rituals ​(Cézard 2014)​.

For non-indigenous artists, there have been attempts to create objects that circulate outside
the market. Vicki Mason’s ​Broaching Change p ​ roject ​(Mason 2010)​ involved the production of
three brooches based on garden plants that are often exchanged freely between suburban
neighbours. For Mason, this provided an immediate symbol of the ideal of a republic, which has
so far eluded Australian history. To give this idea circulation, the broaches were given away as
door prizes at the opening of the exhibition ​Signs of Change.​ The winners could accept these
brooches with the proviso that they were to give them away to the first person who made a
compliment about them. By this means, the brooch would go from person to person, carrying
its political message. Bearers were asked to leave a message on the blog so that the brooches
could be tracked. Mason’s project demonstrates the potential for innovation in the craft field
by finding a means of circulation beyond the commodity market.

In most cases, the material durability of the social object counters the unstable nature of the
social relations between people. But there are occasions when the ephemerality of the object is
a virtue.

There are cases where objects with a short life-span are used to connect people, particularly
where the relationship is short-term. The limited life span of fresh flowers makes them an
appropriate material for making a temporary connection between people. Flowers strung
together into a necklace are used to welcome guests in many cultures of the Asia Pacific ​(Bais
2017)​. For instance, the Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was bedecked in a jasmine
garland during his visit to Indonesia. This ritual honours the visitor with a local bounty of
nature, but it also requires the guest to bow their head in accepting the garland. Unlike the
metallic crown, the garland fades in a couple of days, reflecting the temporary welcome offered
to the guest.

Maintaining relations
Once relationships have been established, the challenge is to maintain them. This often
involves rituals for their renewal, such as annual festivities like the Western Christmas that
regularly bring a family together. While these often entail the exchange of gifts, there are social
objects that specifically assist with keeping relationships alive.

The amulet is one of the oldest social objects. One of the earliest known examples of art were
beads more than 100,000 years old, which are presumed to function as amulets ​(Vanhaereny et
al. 2006)​ Their traditional function is to offer protection against fate, particularly against the
evil eye ​(Rodkinson 2010)​. The evil eye is often associated with the phenomenon of envy,
where the inequalities in a community can lead to resentment. Thus a black mark is often
applied to objects of beauty, such as attractive babies or even highly-decorated trucks in India,
in order to prevent the evil eye.

Conversely, the purpose of the charm is to acquire good fortune. There is a wide variety of
auspicious designs produced by different cultures. For instance, the Japanese omamori is a
sealed purse sold in temples for the achievement of specific goals, such as academic success,
health or wealth ​(Swanger and Takayama 2010)​. The key to their power is that the container in
which they are kept remains sealed. Omamori make good gifts, especially when a parent or
friend wishes someone good fortune. Maintaining this object by keeping it seals is a sign of
respect for this gift. Sometimes it can be returned and recycled, with another sealed object
arriving in its place.

As a gift, the charm offers a sign of support that is retained on the body, despite the absence of
the donor. This can be important during forced absences such as travel.

While the amulet has been a subject of artistic inspiration in the studio craft movement, this
has elided its core function as a power object, to protect and enhance. But as craft takes a
social turn, we see projects that recover this potential. The Cornucopia Project by the WALKA
jewellery studio in Chile is an ongoing series of events that gather people together with
individual charms. This studio has focused on many craft techniques that are particular to rural
Chile, such as the carving of cow horn. One of these is a simple pendant using a repetitive
design that reveals the natural variation in the colours of the horn. For a Cornucopia event, they
gather a group of people together for a ritual involving the offering of a pendant. Each person
makes a selection from the variety on display. This is usually a convivial event, involving warm
sociality in a special location. Like a wedding ring, the horn amulet then provides a material
residue that give enduring life to this fleeting event. Those who have participated in these
events can then also identify each other by wearing the pendant.

IMAGE: WALKA Cornucopia project

The ​Joyaviva​ ​(“Joyaviva - Live Jewellery Across the Pacific” n.d.)​ touring exhibition gathered
together many of these projects. Artists often responded to the circumstances requiring luck
that were specific to their country. This included charms to counter the violence in Mexico or
return confidence following earthquakes in Auckland and Santiago.

Offerings
As one of the most common verbal exchanges, “thank you” reflects the many expressions of
gratitude used everyday to acknowledge the help of others. Many traditional cultures extend
this to rituals that imply a debt to non-human actors, such as gods or nature. The ​canang sari​ in
Bali is a daily ritual offering which involves the crafting of a container out of banana leaves in
which is placed a set of prescribed ingredients including red and white flowers. These are then
offered in temples and the street during a ritual involving prayers and incense ​(Eiseman 2009)​.
While often ephemeral, offerings such as ex-votives can sometimes be durable crafted objects.
The clay body parts found in Etruscan sites, made as an expression of thanks for prayers that
were answered, such as cure for an illness, survive up until today.
The Catholic milagros, body parts in metal, found in cultures such as Italy and Mexico have
been the source of inspiration for many artists. The Mexican jeweller Lorena Lazard made
objects which were outlines of bodies as might be made when someone has been killed on the
street. These objects were used as symbolic offerings to counter the presence of violence in
public life. With a different motive, in 2017 the Australian jeweller Vicki Mason has produced
work for an exhibition title ​The Trees have Names​ that was conceived as votives of nature,
particularly urban trees.

IMAGE Lorena Lazard

Jewellers Jimena Rios and Iris Eichenberg curated an exhibition that functioned as a “return for
the new ex-votives”. As they describe it: “the jewelers who took part in this project were
inspired by this process as intermediaries between a divinity and a devotee and to materialize
the latter’s gratitude.” ​(“True Is What Has Been Made” 2017)

The resulting works were individual artistic responses to the brief which involved the
expression of a personal meaning of gratitude. But such a project does not fully embrace the
social function of the object. The ex-votive concept was realised in the framework of the studio
as the production of art works, rather than objects that are consumed in ritual or left in public
spaces.

Elsewhere, the social turn in the contemporary jewellery movement has featured a number of
projects involving interventions in public space that could be understood as ex-votive. In 2005,
Marian Hosking embarked on a project to make a ring for one of the largest trees in Australia
(Skinner and Murray 2014)​. She wrapped the based of the tree in a ribbon of wax, pressing into
the bark to obtain the grain. This wax was then cast into silver to create a ring 17.5 metres in
diameter. The resulting ring could not be worn by a human, but provided testament to the
majesty of its subject.

Melbourne has been the site of many radical jewellery actions that seek to recast its value
beyond commodity capitalism by placing works on the street. In 2003, Caz Guiney’s ​City Ring
involved secreting gold components in building materials around the city of Melbourne ​(Murray
Port Melbourne, Vic. : Thames & Hudson Australia 2005)​. This was partly a conceptual work as
the bulk of the audience was not witness to the work: it was designed to be suggestive of
hidden treasures in the public domain. But some were easily discovered, such as a gold brooch
on a rubbish bin. According to Roseanne Bartley, “As performers, captives and eventual
trophies in the wider world, the objects also provided an intimate lens through which to
see/experience the city in which we live.” ​(Bartley 2007)

IMAGE: Caz Guiney City Rings

In Melbourne, the collective Part B organised jewellery actions which played ornament in
public. The exhibition ​Steal This​ (2010) involved handmade objects placed in a lane without
fixtures for the public to take freely. Many works were attached by magnets to the wall of an
inner-city lane. The participation of the public consisted in “stealing” the objects and giving
them a private home.
As a jewellery festival in Melbourne, the 2017 Radiant Pavilion included a number of public
presentations that made jewellery as an offering. ​Paved with Gold ​by the Wellington collected
Occupation Artist ​(“OCCUPATION: Artist” n.d.)​, including Kelly McDonald, Sarah Read, Becky
Bliss, Vivien Atkinson, Jhana Millers & Caroline Thomas applied gold leaf to a parking space in a
Melbourne lane. Many of the artists are involved in ​See Here​, a public space for viewing
non-commercial jewellery.

Repair relationships
One of the major activities in social life is responding to situations where trust is violated. This
may be where promises are broken, rules are transgressed or a member leaves the social
group, sometimes permanently as in death. Repair involves a number of stages, reflecting the
ritual process identified by Turner ​(2017)​ associated with resolving social conflict. This involves
first making public the transgression, then enacting justice and finally restoring order.

Truth fetish
In a formal sense, law courts offer a process for abstracting speech from daily conversation so
that it can be recorded as testimony. As we’ve seen, the testimonial function of the Bible can be
used as a swearing object for truth-telling. The testimony is thus tied to the belief system that is
seen as underpinning the social group, and a violation of this through deception would be a
betrayal of the common faith.

More private rituals are embedded in religious practices such as the Catholic confession. In this
case, the wooden structure within the church, known as the “confession box”, offers a
circumscribed space for truth-telling. While this is underpinned by a separation from legal
speech, what is said does have a consequence in the eschatological system where sins are
punished in the afterlife.

Break connection
As a consequence of this truth-telling, there are circumstances where a social bond is
deliberately broken, such as a person who is expelled. There are practical forms of bodily
expulsion, involving incarceration or extradition. In societies where these options were not
developed, there were forms of stigmatisation available, such as branding, tattooing or
ornament. Examples include the scarlet ribbon for adulterers or the yellow Star of David for
Jews in Nazi Germany. There is occasion where objects are destroyed in the rituals of expulsion,
such as ribbons that are torn from a soldier’s uniform in military trials.

Where the other to be excluded is not present, there may be ways of breaking their connection,
such as a curse. Old Norse culture involved a nithing pole which had a recently cut horse head
at the end, which was directed toward the enemy at the time of the curse. In Anglo Saxon
culture, a curse tablet made from a tin would be inscribed with a message of ill fortune wished
upon someone. This has survived in modern times to the concept of a “little black book” in
which are written the names of enemies.
Sorry
At a micro-social level, the act of contrition is reflected in the common refrain of social life,
where statements beginning “I’m sorry…” attempt to make amends for the perceived breaking
of trust in a relationship. For more substantial transgressions, an offering is usually required. In
personal relationships, this may involve a gift such as flowers or chocolate. In more formal
contexts, damages can be determined by the law court and an amount of money be paid to the
victim.

When a person is not expelled, it is sometimes required from the wrongdoer that they
demonstrate their contrition. If successful, this will allows the person to be re-incorporated
back into the group, and trust will be thus restored.

Pre-industrial societies often set particular rules for compensation that did not necessarily
involve money. The Wayuu tribe in Colombia delegated certain individuals known as ​palabreros
with responsibility to resolve conflict ​(Curvelo 2006)​. They would often negotiate a price to be
paid by the perpetrator to the victim, which in many cases was an especially precious heirloom
piece of jewellery. In his study of debt, Graeber ​(2011)​ identified the German tradition of
weregild​, which stipulated a price on damage of varying levels to persons and property. This
provided an important alternative to the blood revenge where punishment would be exacted
on members of the perpetrator’s family or clan.

Mourning
When death breaks the social bond, objects become particularly important in creating a place
for the other that both acknowledges absence while representing their enduring memory. This
recovery from a break can also be found in “peace” objects that attempt to heal relationships
after conflict.

There are some objects that offer a material process for working through grief. The mourning
rings of Susan Cohn involve an aluminium body that is covered by a black paint. This paint
gradually wears off, showing a marked change over three months. The object thus shows an
external correlate to the internal grieving process.

Pre-modern cultures featured amulets that accompanied the dead in the afterlife, such as the
Egyptian ​ushabti​. Such objects retain a social connection despite the absence of their owner
from the living. Susan Cohn’s later exhibition on death objects included jewellery specifically for
the deceased person ​(Cohn 2015)​. One example was a body tag to be placed on the toe which
acknowledged a secret that the person was taking to the grave. As with many of Cohn’s
exhibitions, this is a speculative project that points to a potential design. By implication, it
exposes absences in the less meaningful modern practices of adornment.

IMAGE: Susan Cohn mourning jewellery

Social media offers a new and extensive platform for social life. But applications like Facebook
offer a relatively short term window into social life, highlighting activity of the day and leaving
little trace of previous activity. It is thus a problematic platform for memorialisation. Public
disruptions such as terrorist attacks are sometimes responded to with hashtags. This enables
the expression of solidarity after conflict that implied ineluctable difference within society. The
hashtag #jesuischarlie after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris was recorded as the fasted
growing hashtag in the history of Twitter. But unlike objects, hashtags are ephemeral and leave
no material trace ​(Murray 2015)​. Therefore, they do not offer a memorial space for healing in
the same way as a physical structure like a grave or statue where people can gather on
anniversaries.

The Japanese ceramic tradition of kintsugi offers a useful material correlate to reparation. Here
the broken vessel is repaired with gold leaf, making a virtue of the breaks. Ceramic work
produced by Yoko Ono combined the kintsugi technique with writing that depicted particular
“shattering events” in her life ​(Suqi 2015)​. The implication is that the breaking and repairing of
the cups was a ritual for dealing with their impact on the life of the artist, most publicly the loss
of her husband John Lennon.

This craft process can be applied to a collective experience of trauma. The Combat Paper
project deals with the process of de-militarising countries after civil conflict ​(“About” 2017)​. It
takes uniforms from soldiers and turns them into paper which are then made into artist books.
A similar project occurs with guns that are re-forged into sculptures or jewellery.

Finally, the physical absence of a group member through death leaves an emptiness that can
sometimes be filled materially. In the tradition of the reliquary, an element of the body can still
remain. While it is most common for bodies to be interred in the funeral ritual, even as ashes,
there are certain traditions where the body retains its presence. The Bolivian Fiesta de las
Ñatitas ​(Nuwer 2015)​ involves a gathering of skulls of deceased relatives that are decorated and
included in conversations.

There are many mourning objects that offer a transitional process for grieving the loss of a
loved one. The Victorian era developed reliquary jewellery using the hair of the deceased ​(Lutz
2011)​. Objects related to deceased ancestors are often worshipped in regular rituals of a
Buddhist household. While inorganic and inert, social objects have the distinct advantage of
being present then their hosts and absent, whether temporarily or permanently.

Conclusion
In considering the social role of craft, we’ve seen a number of ways in which it might operate
outside the market. This is informed particularly in the South by the customary practices
associated with significant objects, which have been mostly lost in the North. For Indigenous
practitioners, this involves a decolonial gesture and revival of customary ways. For
non-indigenous artists, it is often associated with forms of social practice involving
collaboration.

For craft criticism, such developments pose a particular challenge in identifying the appropriate
values by which to just works of social craft. The modernist value of originality may be less
important than ethics and cultural responsibility ​(Murray 2017)​.

For the craft “sector”, a model for practice that is outside the market poses particular
challenges of sustainability. How can practitioners survive if they are not selling their work?
Alternative models need to be developed that respond to the increasing consumption of
“experiences” rather than products. This can include tourism, education, object libraries and
manual professionalisation ​(Ocejo 2017)​.

As an art form, craft has flourished during the modern capitalist era. The network of studios,
galleries and museums has fostered the development of the art form. This will no doubt
continue, but there is now a growing alternative sphere involving the service economy and
postcolonial revival. This promises to add fresh energy into the craft field and offer stimulating
challenges to craft theory.

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