Beyond control: Rethinking industry and craft dynamics

This article explores a different strategic role for the crafts in relation to contemporary industry, together with an analysis of potential benefits considered in two ways: first, as a pervasive craft influence to stimulate new design thinking, markets and values, within appropriate industrial contexts; and second, as a series of hands-on, craft interventions that directly affect the quality, aesthetics and role of products. The article examines the current and potential position of the crafts relative to art, design, industry and consumer culture, through a series of related schematic models. These trace the relationship of craft to practice, thinking and influence, and identify the related demands on the craftsperson in the move from a personal paradigm of making to the broader paradigm of production. It is argued that contemporary crafts should contribute to the production of socially directed goods of long-term value to a wider society than the current craft market niche.