In Thoughts, Together: essay + part lecture, part talk (2023)
in thoughts, together: craft, tradition, cosmopolite life
part lecture, part talk together with dutch publisher freek lomme
MADE POSSIBLE BY IASPIS, HEMSLÖJDEN I SKÅNE, STADEN MALMÖS HEMSLÖJDSFÖRENING, FD/C
FORM/DESIGN CENTER
14 SEPTEMBER 2023
The showcase of the project In Thoughts, Together at The Craft Association of Southern Sweden showcases the continuation of the research on the Hedared basket: focusing on its collective remembrance. Through a series of conversations with members of the Hedared Village Assosciation, we explored craftsmanship, social progression, and personal destinies. We unveiled past roots, present-day realities, and future legacies — all interconnected via the craft heritage of the Hedared basket.
What does the collective remembrance of a local craft heritage look like? Do memories differ from family to family? Person to person? How does such a heritage inform the current self-image of a rural area?
For me, this is a personal journey. I have for the past two years researched the Hedared basket. My great-grandfather Lennart Pettersson was an artisan known as ‘the last basketmaker from Risa’. Risa is a small community outside of the village of Hedared. Born in 1901 during the industrialisation and democratisation of Sweden, Lennart learned and related to his craft out of necessity, as he belonged to a family of impoverished farmers. Making was not a choice.
I was born in the same region, the Seven Districts, nearly a century later in the early 1990s. I'm a digital native raised during the age of information. Growing up I was predominately culturally versed in a western, heteronormative context with Swedish as my first language, despite my shared Swedish and North African heritage, and queer identity. I do not speak Arabic, yet my own name originates from it. The inherent sense of inbetweenship of identities created by these multiple points of views; unable to speak Arabic whilst adhering to euro-centric cultural norms, often lead to friction within myself, in not being seen to belong to one certain social context. This longing for acceptance and togetherness makes itself especially known in my lack of speaking the language in which my own name is spoken. Arabic is a familiar and intimate yet foreign tongue.
Having this innate desire to communicate my existence within this kaleidoscope of identities to the outside world has led me to seek outlets which would allow for self-expression beyond the spoken. My craft is driven by a need to reach the core of a subject. To fully understand an object, a medium or a narrative. Reflect, contemplate, discuss and challenge past notions to make way for new perspectives. Breaking with tradition to create spaces for my own multitude of cultural perspectives to co-exist within. This project is a patchwork of these various moving parts, coming together to form a whole through the Hedared basket. Wishing to communicate beyond cultural barriers, the research behind the basket has led me to discover the universal language of craft. A language that, for myself, infiltrates contemporary culture, heritage and identity.
Having lived in London for the past decade, I'm intrigued by how the language of craft, originating from the local realm of Hedared, influences our broader culture. With In Thoughts, Together, my ambition has been to focus on the collective rather than solely exploring my own ideas about my practice in relation to my great-grandfather’s. Through collaboration, I aimed to become an interpreter, observing and synthesising the conversations held with members of the Hedared Village Association, to understand the basket as a community-bearing object.
When translating this research into woven outputs, it allowed me to discover theory: how writing can inform a making based practice and vice versa; open up new perspectives and connect my own ethos with that of already established, and globally relevant ideas on craft. Its universal values of unity, generational knowledge and self-sufficiency became common denominators through work with the Hedared Village Association. Creating space for common understanding.
Naturally resulting in this research becoming part of the ongoing book project, The Basket: Notes on Craft, Tradition, Cosmopolite Life (working title). Summarising the themes explored throughout. Yet, nothing exists in a vacuum.
My own thoughts and work connect with other realities and established methods of addressing similar issues:
What resonates about a local craft heritage in a global cultural context? Do the values of rural traditions hold significance in contemporary culture?
Are there parallels to be drawn or similarities to be found?
Photos by Molly Overstall Khan, Daniel Engvall