Artisan Craft An Essential Carrier of Cultural Values into the Next Generation

A grudge that artisans have had, at least in India, is that either they are poster men and women (recently) or languish in poverty despite their unique talent while corporates and others make money out of them. One of the prime reasons of course is the lack of formal education. And I am sure this is the story pretty much everywhere. Your comments and what is the LOA doing in this regard? 

Carry Somers: While education is vital for breaking cycles of generational poverty, particularly for women and girls, we also need to value different ways of learning, including indigenous knowledge, within both formal and non-formal models, and tailor our work towards the ways in which artisans learn. I’m particularly excited about one of the projects League of Artisans is working on in the year ahead, a British Council funded toolkit to reduce the exposure of micro-businesses and women-led creative enterprises to climate-related disasters, making sure they are climate-prepared, and helping them recover and strengthen post-disaster. 

 Our approach is not expert-led, or top down. Outputs will be co-created through creative dialogue, through knowledge collection and sharing videos, which are popular with artisans, founded on the premise that artisans are the best teachers. Documenting experiences from the Philippines and beyond, pre- and post-disasters, we will incorporate artisans’ experiences into needs assessments and share success stories from global communities with the aim of replicating good practices. Moving forward, we are looking for funding to translate and localise the toolkit for other countries, drawing on their lived experience.

The trigger for Fashion Revolution was the Rana Plaza tragedy a decade back. The victims of this tragedy were labour working in inhuman conditions. The crafts people are no better. They also do not get their dues and many of them do not have access to basic amenities, living in poverty.
Carry Somers: It is undoubtedly time to give artisans their due, which is why at League of Artisans we have co-created a manifesto with our artisan advisors. Dignity of the Hand, an Artisan Manifesto is a groundbreaking document that highlights the crucial role artisans play in preserving cultural heritage and addressing contemporary challenges. Crafted in collaboration with craftsmen and women from around the world, this manifesto sets out nine ethical principles aimed at securing a more dignified future for artisans, and will be launched on 18 April, World Artisan Day.

Artisan craft is more than just a product—it is an essential carrier of cultural values into the next generation. For example, the Panama hat seems ubiquitous, but it is a craft skill under threat. In the community where Pachacuti works, 60% of children have at least one parent living overseas which has led to the devastation of families, high rates of alcoholism, youth suicide and teenage pregnancies, coupled with declining school performance. 

Pachacuti's Fair Trade purchasing provides a sustainable livelihood, enabling women to remain within their rural communities where they can fit hat weaving around the agricultural cycle and caring for their families. More than that, it honours the richness and complexity of the weaving tradition, the intangible treasures of artisanal skills that form a reservoir of knowledge. I strongly believe that transhistorical community value systems can present a powerful counterpoint to the logic of generating profit now, but whether these skills survive into the future depends very much upon whether we are prepared to invest in one beautifully crafted genuine article instead of cheap imitations.

Brands and retailers have a vital role to play too. Rather than seeing global artisans as a cheap source of the hand-made or a design source to appropriate, they should pay fair wages that take into account the time-consuming nature of artisanal skills, as well as the generations of knowledge that have helped hone the craft. And working towards more sustainable sourcing, they should trace all material inputs, adhering to the *Nagoya Protocol where they utilise indigenous knowledge.

* The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS) to the Convention on Biological Diversity is a supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity. It provides a transparent legal framework for the effective implementation of one of the three objectives of the CBD: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources. Its objective is the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources, thereby contributing to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

Sustainability and what the artisans craft is just that, source as they do their raw material from yarn to dye from nature primarily. What is the LOA doing to preserve each step of a heritage craft from soil/ seed to the finished product?
Carry Somers: The League of Artisans is working to combat inequality, injustice and the climate emergency in the belief that artisan skills offer a more dignified future for people and planet. Through mobilising the power of co-creation and collaboration, we are amplifying artisans’ voices, and supporting them in advocating for their communities. Our aim is to promote artisan skills as a vital response to global challenges, trusting in the transformational power of craft to create alternative futures. 

One of our main projects for the year ahead is Leek Textile Week, a celebration of the rich textile heritage of the UK town where we are based. The week comprises a series of community-focused activities, talks and exhibitions that weave threads of the past into the present, spinning new connections with Indian artisans whose knowledge helped transform the local industry. In the months leading up to Leek Textile Week in September, we are running a series of online webinars, several of which are on heritage crafts. Our most recent one was on Textile Block Printing Past and Present where we discussed Sir Thomas Wardle’s natural dye experiments alongside Indian artisans’ invaluable contributions with their knowledge of plant dyes. We also heard about the continuing tradition of Indian block printing and its global connections today from award-winning Kachchhi master block printers.

Again, the world over, the artisan does not get the right price for his/ her product and so there are crafts that have been lost or there remain the last of the craftspeople as GenNext has moved away for greener pastures. What steps in this direction?
Carry Somers: These crafts are frequently practiced by original populations, indigenous communities who act as protectors of biodiversity and guardians against deforestation. If we allow these crafts to disappear, there is less opportunity for future generations to create sustainable livelihoods. We should care about protecting and supporting craft skills as much as we care about other traditions. But we don’t, because the hands of the maker are too often invisible. Protecting traditional crafts enables people, particularly women, to remain within their communities, rather than migrate in search of work, contributing to the protection of those areas of our planet which are crucial for our survival on this earth. 

Each heritage craft is unique to a land/ country/ people. Some of the biggest brands use these to make their couture offerings with zero or little credit to the country of origin, craftspeople having mostly fallen out of the credit zone. Is it not time that a geographical tag be made mandatory to promote these arts, give the respective country and its state its due and the craft the respect it deserves. This step would also go a long way in promoting that particular art or craft.
Carry Somers: At the end of last year, the European Union issued a regulation on the protection of geographical indications for craft and industrial products. Geographical indication has mostly been used for food and drink in the past, but the regulation introduces it for products such as jewellery, textiles, lace, cutlery, glass and porcelain which originate in a specific place, region or country and which have a reputation or other characteristic essentially attributable to its geographical origin. I think it would be hard to make a tag mandatory, as you suggest, but I see this sort of legislation as an important step towards both transparency for craft products. The 2022 Mexican legislation around the reproduction and commercialisation of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican cultural expressions, spearheaded by senator Susana Harp, is also one I hope we will see replicated elsewhere. 

Let’s look back to the time when you co-founded the Fashion Revolution. How did it all start? 
Carry Somers: Two days after the Rana Plaza disaster, I was having a bath, and the idea for Fashion Revolution just came into my head as a reasonably fully formed idea. I think it’s worth saying that I had to get out of the tub, go into my cold bedroom and pick up the phone to make something happen. If I had carried on with my warm Sunday night bath, Fashion Revolution would have been no more than a fleeting idea—of that I am certain. Sometimes we need a little discomfort to bring about change. And from there it grew, carried by a community of people around the world who wanted to do something to make sure a disaster like Rana Plaza never happened again.