Dialogues & Prospects – Arts & Craft and Design

The European project MOSAIC, led in France by the Société d’Enseignement Professionnelle du Rhône (SEPR) and the Université Jean Monnet de Saint-Etienne (UJM) and involving 7 countries and 15 partners, is the initiative behind the Dialogues & Prospects conference, with the support of the ECLLA laboratory and the 3LA doctoral school. Within these institutions, discussions are taking place on art and design, with a particular focus on the issues of sustainable transition, economic and social development, the funding of research and development, and the transmission of know-how. While the first phase of the MOSAIC project mapped out the needs and difficulties encountered by the arts and crafts sector, we now feel it would be worthwhile to explore these unique issues in greater depth. 

Associating craft and design might seem obvious. However, in the common imagination, they often appear as two different, even alien, fields. One is linked to an almost ‘outdated’ tradition (Dumas, 2009 ; Jourdain, 2014; ), to a nostalgia for a job well done, while the other is rooted in the contemporary world – the vocabulary being one of its hallmarks – and which, from space to service, from cuisine to sound, knows almost no boundaries. 

Yet their histories seem to be linked. While the beginnings of design are linked to the industrialisation of Western countries – the date of 1851 being commonly accepted as the trigger for a process of reflection that was to develop, articulate and structure itself over time – a large proportion of the creations of the time share this close relationship with singular know-how, the idea of the hand, a rejection of the machine, production usually in very small quantities and a great deal of attention to the quality of materials and therefore of production. However, the aims and intentions of design and craft are very different. The question of means and ends has been widely debated (de Held et al, 2022). If, in the current context of accelerated change in art and design craft practices (Pörtner et al., 2022; Morewedge et al., 2021), it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate the two fields, questioning the place and role of each within the creative economy (Comunian et al., 2020; Horvath et al., 2020; Mignosa et al., 2019) is now essential to understanding its future.

The Conference “Dialogues & Prospects, arts and crafts & design” aims to examine these two disciplines from two angles: 

• On the principle of convergence around the notion of creation (Léchot-Hirt et al., 2010; Petts et al., 2008; Markowitz, 1994);
• Based on the principle of cross-fertilisation of unique methods and our own thinking tools (Bappel, 2021; Design Council, 2019; Hummels et al., 2019).  

Art and crafts in discussion with design provide food for thought on the challenges facing these sectors today (Brunet et al., 2023; Robra et al., 2023; Braunstein-Kriegel et al., 2019; Crawford, 2009). Design can be a lever for thinking about the adaptation of arts and crafts in a changing ecosystem. It is then confronted with the problems faced by the crafts in terms of sustainability, durability, digitalisation and education, among others. We propose to develop this discussion through three lines of research: the first explores the diversity that makes up the arts and crafts sector, the second questions the various dimensions linked to the sustainability of craft businesses, and the third looks at educational projects for the future of the sector.

Download the program >>