This collection of 19 original essays argues for a critical and sustained engagement between the fields of craft and heritage. The book's interdisciplinary and international array of authors consider how heritage and craft institutions, policies, practices and audiences encounter the constraints and opportunities of production, recognition and exhibition. Case studies spanning 125 years raise and address questions concerning authenticity and commodification, innovation and improvisation, diasporas and decolonization, global economies and national and professional identities. Authors also analyse mechanisms through which craft mobilises and has been harnessed by heritage processes and designations. Examples range from an Irish village at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the role of chronopolitics in contemporary Vietnamese pottery, to the invisibility of crochet within Swedish heritagisation processes and the application of game theory in a ceramics museum. With section one considering citizenship and identity, section two sustainability and section three dynamic craft in cultural institutions, Craft and Heritage interrogates how craft objects, makers and processes intersect with current heritage concerns and practices.

The first work to highlight the intersections of critical craft and heritage discourses, provoking consideration of the role of craft in heritage practice and theory.

About the Author
Elaine Cheasley Paterson is Professor of Art History at Concordia University, Canada. Susan Surette is part-time Faculty at Concordia University, Canada and ceramic artist.


Book Information
ISBN 9781350067585
Author Susan Surette
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 632g