From Objects to Actions and Back Again: The Politics of Dematerialized Craft and Performance Documentation

Abstract

Traditional craft practice has long emphasized features of function and materiality, with the useful and skillfully produced object at the center of the way craft is read and understood. However, a number of recent exhibitions and artworks have included not just objects, but also craft set in motion through participatory projects or performances. Correspondingly, the crafted object has undergone a shift in its once-central role, serving instead as a record of an event or process, a prop or tool, and in some cases disappearing altogether. Through a consideration of select projects and curatorial strategies from Common Threads at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Calgary, AB (2008), and Gestures of Resistance at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, OR (2010), this article argues that it is necessary to consider how the histories and theories of performance art are intersecting with contemporary craft practices, with a particular focus on the role of documentation and ephemeral traces.

Keywords:

• craft
• performance art
• documentation
• curatorial practice
• collections

Notes

1. The Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, has also used this strategy in conjunction with a 2011 exhibition of works by textile artist Laurie Herrick, inviting five weavers to perform as Artists-in-Residence during the run of the exhibition (Wiggers 2011). Artist Mackenzie Kelly-Frère writes about his in-gallery weaving performance in this issue.

2. For example, we might contrast the Common Threads knitting workshops with the myriad of other contemporaneous instances of self-organized and social crafting activities of the same period. Knitting circles, the increasingly popular “Stitch n’ Bitch” meetings held in yarn stores and cafes, Craftivist, and yarn-bombing groups all enact versions of craft’s social potential—without (and sometimes in defiance of) any kind of “call to action” or recognition from institutional or gallery spaces (Minahan and Cox 2007).

3. In a similar vein, a New York Times review of Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting, points to the works in the exhibition that used interactivity or performance as “most in keeping with the show’s politically charged title” while expressing disappointment at the lack of more experimental approaches to knitting or needlework in the exhibition overall (Schwendener 2007).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicole Burisch

Nicole Burisch is a Canadian curator, critic, artist, and cultural worker. Through various independent and collaborative projects, much of her work has focused on contemporary craft and craft theory and she has researched, published, exhibited, and lectured on this topic in Canada and internationally. Her research (with Anthea Black) into curatorial strategies for politically engaged craft practices is included in The Craft Reader (Berg) and Extra/ordinary: Craft and Contemporary Art (Duke University Press). [email protected]