‘Documentation-in-action’ in craft and design practice: Reflection on social organisation and prevailing tradition in the birdcage craft village in Indonesia

Abstract

Previous research on collaboration activities between designers and craftsmen has been frequently carried out. Starting from its focus on developing craft products aligning with the market needs, efforts to investigate mutual learning processes between designers and crafts in their everyday life, to the investigation of the co-designing process in making craft products. However, previous research has merely focused on the micro-scale activities without attending to the sociocultural influences surrounding the craft and design practices. Therefore, in this paper, we delve into the collaborative activities of the crafters and a designer in one of the biggest birdcage-maker villages in West Java Province, Indonesia, and look at the social infrastructure that supports the daily activities of the birdcage crafters in influencing design directions. We also investigate how the traditions that exist in the everyday life of craftsmen can persistently challenge and impact the process of collaboration, design, and innovation produced by craftsmen and designers.

Keywords:

• Social infrastructure
• craft
• design
• tradition
• decolonizing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Warong is a small shop selling foods and other groceries commonly found in various regions in Indonesia.

2 Interview with the district’s head in November 2017.

3 Interview with one of the village heads in Selaawi in September 2017.

4 Selaawi Tak Akan Lagi Masuk Desa Tertinggal [Selaawi no longer categorized as a poor district]. Accessed from http://www.pikiran-rakyat.com/jawa-barat/2016/01/04/355730/selaawi-tak-akan-lagi-masuk-kecamatan-tertinggal on October 2018

5 Penampakan Sangkar Burung Raksasa di Garut yang Masuk Rekor MURI [The biggest birdcage in Garut breaking Indonesian World Record Museum]. Tribune News.com. Accessed from http://www.tribunnews.com/regional/2016/12/12/penampakan-sangkar-burung-raksasa-di-garut-yang-masuk-rekor-muri on October 2018

6 http://www.tribunnews.com/regional/2016/12/12/penampakan-sangkar-burung-raksasa-di-garut-yang-masuk-rekor-muri in October 2018

Interview with Mr. Ayi on November 20, 2018

7 This condition is in line with the idea of labor flexibility (Shiraishi, 2006), describing reciprocity among people and neighbors, showing the value of cooperative labor.

8 Interview with Untung in October 2017

9 Amygdala's official website. Accessed on August 12, 2018, from https://amygdalabamboo.com/.

10 Many studies have concentrated on the issue of prototyping within an inclusive design. For instance, scholars have examined prototyping as a relational process of multiple becomings by distinguishing between proximal and distal users to identify the definition of obesity (Wilkie 2014), prototyping as an ethnomethodological approach in the development of technological design and the reconfiguration of workplace practices (Suchman, Trigg, and Blomberg 2002), or as a mutually transforming process among the actors. These studies have addressed a critical perspective that foregrounds user-centered design, in which the design and prototyping essentially propose a novelty with new capacities and competencies (Wilkie 2014). However, despite the illuminating discussion on identifying the role of prototyping as a device in the assemblage of multiple interests, all these studies ultimately focus on user centering, which needs to be adequate to analyze the diversity of design objectives in this case study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty of Art and Design, ITB under [Grant PPMI FSRD 2022].