Craft Sciences

Front matter

RSITATIS GOTHENBURGENSIS STUDIES IN CONSERVATION 5 3

Tina Westerlund Camilla Groth Gunnar Almevik (Editors)

ACTA UNIVERSITATIS GOTHENBURGENSIS GOTHENBURG STUDIES IN CONSERVATION 53

II Abstract

Title: Craft Sciences

Editors: Tina Westerlund, Camilla Groth and Gunnar Almevik Language: English

Keywords: Craft research, craft sciences, practice-led research, practitioner researcher

The field of ‘Craft Sciences’ refers to research conducted across and within different craft subjects and academic contexts. This anthology aims to expose the breadth of topics, source material, methods, perspectives, and results that reside in this field, and to explore what unites the research in such diverse contexts as, for example, the arts, conservation, or vocational craft education. The common thread between each of the chapters in the present book is the augmented attention given to methods—the craft research methods—and to the relationship between the field of inquiry and the field of practice. A common feature is that practice plays an instrumental role in the research found within the chapters, and that the researchers in this publication are also practitioners. The authors are researchers but they are also potters, waiters, carpenters, gardeners, textile artists, boat builders, smiths, building conservators, painting restorers, furniture designers, illustrators, and media designers. The researchers contribute from different research fields, like craft education, meal sciences, and conservation crafts, and from particular craft subjects, like boat-building and weaving. The main contribution of this book is that it collects together a number of related case studies and presents a reflection on concepts, perspectives, and methods in the general fields of craft research from the point of view of craft practitioners. It adds to the existing academic discussion of crafts through its wider acknowledgement of craftsmanship and extends its borders and its discourse outside the arts and crafts context. This book provides a platform from which to develop contextappropriate research strategies and to associate with the Craft Sciences beyond the borders of faculties and disciplines.

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THE CRAFT LABORATORY

This book is produced by the Craft Laboratory, a center at the University of Gothenburg. The Craft Laboratory was established in 2010 in cooperation with heritage organisations, craft enterprises and trade organisations, with the agenda to bring research into practice, and involve craftspeople in the processes of inquiry. The Craft Laboratory also provides the infrastructure for the University of Gothenburg's higher education and research in crafts located in Mariestad.

IV Kriterium

This book is published within Kriterium, a consortium that reviews Swedish scholar literature. This means that at least two external and independent experts have reviewed the manuscript and that Kriterium has subsequently approved the book for publication. Kriterium operates on the initiative of Swedish higher education institutions and aims to safeguard the position of the book as a format and strengthen its position in relation to other forms of scientific publication. All books published within Kriterium are available via www.kriterium.se.

Preface

Establishing a new discipline within the university is seldom a straightforward process. It involves multiple related actions and requires preparation over a lengthy period of time. Such an enterprise is usually part of a broader development stretching out across universities and countries, even if the process may be piecemeal and uneven.

This book is partly a result of the introduction in 2002 of craft as a university subject at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Still, more generally, it demonstrates a broad parallel move in this direction by many different partners in the Nordic countries. Today, all children of primary school level learn handicraft and sloyd and can pursue a career in many craft fields right up to doctorate level. This book attempts to introduce some of this development to an international audience.

The breadth and depth of the contributions to this book are, from my point of view, impressive. They show a field with a certain degree of maturity and independence that was difficult to imagine when I first became involved in the introduction of craft to the university more than twenty years ago.

And yet it seemed so evident that this was the way forward. Why shouldn't building and gardening craft be represented at the most advanced level of education? In 2000, two colleagues, Peter Sjamar and Gunnar Almevik, presented two short training programs in craft that had started just a few years before. These training programs were part of a lifelong learning policy funded by the state, but the ambitions were much more advanced from the outset. In the late 1990s, it had become apparent that the lack of highly skilled craftspeople in the heritage sector was a big problem. The market and private businesses could not solve the problem. Traditional learning from master craftspeople in small workshops was not enough to meet the demand, larger companies were rarely interested, and upskilling by labour market programs were too short-sighted. No institutions could meet the growing demand for in-depth craft skills and knowledge.

Sjémar and Almevik had a plan to address this deficit by building a long-term university education in heritage (conservation) related craft. It involved not only training and skills but also research and development activities, the production of new kinds of teaching material, and a focus on the specific theories underlying, supporting, and demonstrating the knowledge and skills necessary to perform high-quality craft. All of these aspects had already been demonstrated on a small but convincing scale on-site in the craft training programs in Mariestad.

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At my first visit, it was clear that the project, however big a challenge, would be feasible given the proper support and resources.

At this time, around 2000, I was working at the National Heritage Board. With the support of my colleagues Sune Lindkvist and Marja-Leena Pilvesmaa, the agency addressed the Ministry of Education to encourage that the training programs in Mariestad be integrated into higher education.

In 2002, the University of Gothenburg, where I had recently been appointed professor, assessed whether the school in Mariestad could meet the criteria of a university program. After a two-day audit led by a professor in chemistry, Daniel Jagner, the assessment group concluded that all university standards were met. After a few years, new educational programs were introduced at the Department of Conservation. Senior lecturers were employed on their craft merits, and in 2007 the first PhD student with a craft background was admitted to the doctoral program. Fifteen years later, eight PhD students in conservation with a focus on craft as theory and practice have graduated from the department, and three professors with specialisation in craft have been employed. We can now say with confidence that a new discipline has been introduced and matured within our department.

There have been questions about, and criticism of, the decision to make craft a university-level discipline. Is there a need for carpenters and gardeners to be academics? Such questions can be answered in many ways. Here, it is enough to say that the decision was never meant to leave the masters of craftsmanship behind but to create formal and sustainable structures to support the continuation of this excellence—to develop complementary educational forms supported with pedagogical and economic capacity. However, we imagine the masters of the future to be different from those of the past. Alongside the deep material and procedural craft know-how of the trade itself, it will be essential to control generic management skills, to understand and decide on the specific criteria of quality in different fields (as in conservation), and to develop skills in new contexts through research.

One challenge has been developing appropriate formats of teaching and research which work alongside the shift in focus within the study of crafts away from the ‘knowing-what’ to the ‘knowing-how’,, connecting to Gilbert Ryle’s provocative concepts. Even if it were possible to gain approval of a craft curriculum, there is still a lack of procedures, assessment criteria, publications, and bibliometric standards to support the new direction. Today, craft education is represented from the lower levels of competence to the highest via the eightgrade European Qualification Framework (EQF). In many countries, the pursuit of a career

VII in craft within higher education or beyond the common vocational training exit at EQF level 4 or 5 is uncommon.

Of course, the Swedish process does not exist in a vacuum. The United Kingdom brought polytechnical subjects, arts and crafts, and other creative practices into higher education in the early 1990s and introduced practice-led research discourses and formal practitioner doctorates. Finland established Craft Science around the same time and has by now generated hundreds of doctorates in crafts, many with a focus on craft pedagogy and teaching. What is particular to Swedish craft research and higher education is the perspective on craft in cultural heritage (or kulturvård [culture + care] which is the correct Swedish denomination) on the one hand, and on the other hand the involvement of large trade crafts and commercial craft fields beyond the artisanal crafts, like carpentry, masonry, gardening, landscape-related crafts, and culinary crafts.

The progression from the short training programs in Mariestad to the establishment of university-level education took just a few years. After this followed a more extended day-today effort to achieve and harvest what had been sown. So, this book, introducing parts of the Nordic perspective to a wider audience, is not only the result of the editors and authors themselves; it is a collective effort of all teachers and students struggling with a discipline in the making for over two decades.

Gothenburg March 29, 2022

Ola Wetterberg