Research takes care. It requires work, and builds connections best when shared. 

Research can take a variety of forms: writing, working in archives, dialogue, making things, and examining things that have been made. We believe research, when expansive, culturally sensitive, and collaborative, is a process for tending to craft.

The format for this gathering is a research experiment, and proposes a key question:

What work can we do together that we could not do alone?

Through a series of sessions designed around listening, making, and discussing, this gathering is a place to share research tools, work-in-progress, and to think critically with people you may know  - and those who you will get to know. 

Over the course of three days, we will build, connect, experiment, and question how research tends to the study of craft. Participants will engage and reflect both on and off-line. Session formats vary from conversations followed by small, hosted group discussions to collective making workshops; from individual off-line experiences to short, fast-paced introductions to people and projects. Participants can shape the conversation, too, through breakout sessions on topics of their choosing.

Craft Ways 2021: Tending to Craft aims to disrupt hierarchies and change craft histories. By shifting research towards collaboration and collectivity, we can learn from—and with—each other. 

We envision this gathering as a springboard to explore the possibilities of collaborative research—with outcomes unknown. If you are ready for this open-ended and collective consideration of what it means to tend to craft research, this gathering is for you.

About the Partnership

Craft Ways 2021 is co-presented by the Center for Craft and the MA in Critical Craft Studies program at Warren Wilson College. As program partners, this gathering exemplifies the type of generative collaboration that builds intergenerational networks to recognize and support future craft practice, research, and scholarship.

The Center for Craft is the leading national nonprofit working at the intersection of culture and higher education to advance the understanding of craft. The Center for Craft is the leading national nonprofit working at the intersection of culture and higher education to advance the understanding of craft. Located in Asheville, NC, the Center offers quality arts programming and exhibitions free to the public, in addition to a nationally recognized grant program that serves artists, curators, and scholars throughout the United States.

Warren Wilson College’s Masters in Critical Craft Studies is the first and only low-residency graduate program in craft history and theory. Warren Wilson College, a private four-year liberal arts college in the Swannanoa Valley, North Carolina, provides a distinctive undergraduate and graduate education that combines academics, work, and service.