CRAFTS SHOP

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CLUSTER CRAFTS FAIR

Machines and technology are becoming a part of every aspect of our lives, especially this year. Covid-19 has accelerated the movement of the real world into one that is mediated through technology – exercise classes, socialising, professional meetings – these all happen through a screen. And for a period of time in most major cities, art, craft and design had to also move into the digital realm.

When you think about it, machines have in some respects been behind most of our daily products and objects for a long time. Most of what we touch, wear and eat off has been mass produced in factories in vast, technical production lines.

That’s where craft has always had a particularly seductive advantage. It offers you a piece of humanity – of skill, imagination, imperfection and singularity – in an increasingly homogenous landscape. And it’s hard to resist, that sense of the handmade, of the human, in a product. At Cluster we celebrate the craftsmanship in the pieces we include in our exhibitions. These pieces connect us to the history of cultures and materials, and introduce us to new shapes and unexpected functions.

With their tangible qualities, craft products they make us aware of our own senses, and inspire us in ways that we cannot predict. Much of the material used by craftsmen has a sense of its own life to it: wood is a living and natural material with its own unique character. Clay is dug from the ground and responds to the human touch in a particularly fleshy, malleable way. Stone has its own unique set of mannerisms. The end product is always a kind of collaboration between the will of the maker and the will of the material.

Machine made pieces will never have this quality. The uniqueness of these things cannot be achieved without an artisan involved. In truth, you can rarely truly appreciate the presence an object has without being in the same room as it. The weight or lightness of an object is hard to mediate through a screen. Craft brings us back to the physical world, out of our heads and into our hands. The slow and deliberate processes involved in making remind us to also slow down.

And in this moment in time, that might just be particularly important. Exhibitions immerse you in a world of beauty and skill, and sometimes the most inconspicuous piece is the one that moves you most powerfully. Experiencing craft in a curated exhibition puts you in the right mindset to discover all of these pieces in a way that, we suggest – and invite to come along to see if you agree – you can only really truly appreciate in person.

YOU CAN VISIT ANGELICA’S PAGE HERE TO SEE MORE…