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Abstract
The year 2013, declared the Jubilee Year of Handcraft in Finland, raised the level of public awareness towards crafts by engaging craft-makers in several virtual and in-person craft projects. One of the projects was a short film competition called Crafts in Our Lives, which asked craft practitioners to present their vision of how crafts have been part of their lives through film-making. This article contributes to the current debates about the meanings of contemporary craft-making through an autoethnographic short film project inspired by the competition. The short film reflects on the experiences of a young hobbyist knitter, with attention to the subversive Do-It-Yourself movement on the one hand and the resurgence of the nostalgic granny-like “nanna” practices on the other. The autoethnographic project sheds light on the meanings and experiences of a young craft-maker, and articulates the potential of a camera as a tool for reviewing one’s own maker identities.
Acknowledgement
The production of the short film was supported by Aino-koti -säätiö in 2014.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anna Kouhia
Anna Kouhia is a craft researcher with interests in leisure-based textile making, hobbyist crafting communities, and autoethnographic research methodologies. She is currently finalizing her PhD study on the meanings of leisure craft making at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She holds an MA in Craft Studies at the University of Helsinki and an MA in Textile Design at the University of Lapland. [email protected]