Crisis -> Care -> Calm->

This week the world craft Council hosted a series of seminars. I was lucky enough to be ask to contribute to one ‘Craft during Crisis’ in regards to work I did setting up and running emergency community sewing project “Scrub Hub” during the first lockdown when PPE had run out across the UK.

It was interesting to see how other groups around the world had followed their creative instincts and utilised design and craft skills to both react to and also heal from crisis - from natural disasters through to the pandemic like us.

Rebekah Cheung from the Ishinomaki laboratory explained how they were born after the great eastern earthquake in Japan in 2011 as a community project where locals who had lost everything would meet and learn how to build simple furniture - occupying their hands and minds, as well as giving them and their families much needed seating.

“When we began, we were just a public community workshop, stocked with donated tools and timber for anyone to use. We didn’t think that we would become a furniture brand, but through the simple beauty of the designs and strong message of our story, Ishinomaki Laboratory has now gone global.”

“Made in Local started with the simple desire to bring Ishinomaki Laboratory’s designs and story to a local context. We were borne from very humble roots; through using locally-available materials and tools, we were able to design and make products that continue to inspire others with their simplicity and versatility today. We hope to bring that same design ethos to local communities worldwide”

Through reacting to crisis with creativity and craftsmanship they were able to learn from their own instinctive ‘emergency’ methodology and create a template which is being applied in other earthquake hit areas such as Manilla, but also in London and Berlin. Having understood the universal benefit that community led, local making intiatives can have in building resilience and binding in communities.

This rings true of my experience with Scrub Hub. We set up hyper locally, because of the limitation of lockdown, but actually found that de centralised local hubs would allow for more autonomy, flexibility and the ability to react to local needs. It also meant that money raised and fabric sourcing was done on a community level. When I designed the open source document to help others join our mission, this was at the heart of it.

The thing that really struck me about the scrub project, aside from the obvious help to the health service, was the new local creative connection and communities created at a time of unprecedented loneliness, seperation and national anxiety.

Many people would write and send messages saying that using their hands and meeting others in their communities had not only got them through lock down but had changed their lives. Some people have subsequently set up businesses or their hubs have turned into ‘sewing circles’. One in particular ‘Sheilas sewing circle’ was developed into an rudimentary app by her son, so she could better keep up with not only the logistics of the production line needed to make and deliver scrubs, but also to remind her to call each of her members once a week for a chat, many who lived alone and she didn’t know before. With a loneliness said to be a silent pandemic in much of the western world, particularly with older people I’m fascinated in the way craft can act as a framework for building community.

At the end of the session we discussed and concluded on a few key points - the importance of craft and handmaking both practically and emotionally during times of crisis, The reassurance that was gained from working within local community led projects and the benefits of feeling useful in averting or solving a crisis as part of a team. The importance of social media and shared documents to communicate and include others.

It was very interesting for me to reframe and contextualise the practice I’m building this year against the work I did with Scrub Hub, which I’d up until now considered as distinct. I am searching to create object that calm, soothe and build resilience, for both myself as maker and to the user. In many ways the antithesis to crisis is calm, which is obvious now I’ve written it down, but it was an Ah ha moment picking up this thread this week. I. now understand my practice holistically sits actively between these two words and I’m very interested to lean into this more.

Another word that Simon pointed out also helped me see a synthesis in my aims ( and also begins with C ) is Care. In particular in regards to my approach to circularity - in effect caring for the planet, and the intention of care afforded by the objects I want to create.

CRISIS - > CARE - > CALM

On Simons recommendation I tuned into a lecture by Sarah Smizz who is an illustrator, a PHD student and radiographer who is recovering from Cancer herself.

I was interested to see her work was expressed in many different forms - from organisational, to design to creative workshop, and she brought her core interest of health care and rehabilitation into her approach at all scales. I also enjoyed finding someone with whom my work would sit in wider context with - Although visually very different.
I also learned of the book ‘on care’ which I’m interested to look at to help me contextualise further.

“‘ON CARE, an aggregate of voices, discusses the politics of caring, support, and the role of welfare in an increasingly neoliberal society. It questions who is seen as worthy of care, whose narratives are given attention, and whose lives are overlooked in a complex web of assemblages”

Smizz’s work is very anthropological and collaborative in approach, and I was interested in ways I can also begin to use tools such as questionnaires and co designing into my research. In my object making this next few weeks I am exploring my own personal understanding, and objective research and intuitive making. I wonder what inspiration I can gain from understanding how others soothe and how this interacts with what I’m learning now. In my proposal I wanted to create a questionnaire and have delayed it simply because I’ve been wrestling trying to get my head round the research I already embarked on.