In this episode of Design Emergency, Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli explore how craft has evolved into a powerful force for social, cultural, and environmental change.
Design, art, and craft have had a long, complex relationship. For most of human history they were inseparable: the objects people made — textiles, sculptures, tools, paintings, ceramics, furniture — belonged to the same continuum of human creativity, skill, and material knowledge. Industrialization disrupted that balance, introducing divisions between art, design, and crafts, while often relegating crafts to the margins as decorative, domestic, and secondary to industrial production. Yet in recent years, amid ecological crisis, technological anxiety, and a growing desire for more meaningful forms of making, craft has returned with renewed urgency and visibility.
Through a series of parables spanning continents and generations, Alice and Paola uncover remarkable examples of crafts as catalysts for social and cultural change: Ethel Mairet’s radical weaving experiments in 19th century England; Ruth Clement Bond’s quilting initiatives among African American communities in the American South; Fernando Laposse’s collaborations with farming communities in Mexico; and Theaster Gates’s transformation of neighborhoods and communities in Chicago through repair, making, and collective labor.
Set against a backdrop of environmental crisis, technological acceleration, and renewed interest in material knowledge, the episode celebrates the re-emergence of crafts as a critical language for thinking about identity, ecology, community, and the future of making.
You can find images related to the projects and people discussed in this episode on our Instagram grid @design.emergency.
Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency, when we will hear from other global design leaders who, through their work and ideas, are helping to shape positive change.Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
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