What's the goal of this endeavour? It is meant to support local craftsmanship, and protect consumers. An interdisciplinary project, it creates contemporary versions of old, traditional objects which form part of the collection of the National Museum of Ethnography. The artists have undertaken the remaking of chairs and stools, as well as objects such as the buńka – a spinning top toy – and łapcie, traditional bast shoes. Documentary reportage footage is going to be published online under the Creative Commons Licence, with step by step illustrations of the way the products are made. Anyone interested will be able to download the internet documentation, and recreate these objects at a local crafstman's workshop or adapt them to their own needs.
Esperanto objects?
The ethnographer Aleksander "Bratek" Robotycki comments that the endeavour transgresses the old idea of distance and separation between the designer, the producer and the consumer. It reverses the whole process of creating objects and also creates a great chance of meeting with remarkable individuals.
Usually, objects arrive at a museum "from somewhere," and now, they will "go somewhere" from the museum. We want to show that a contemporary reading of objects is possible, and we are going to re-interpret them, and we will get to know their histories. During one of the meetings in our group, someone used the term "an Esperanto object". It's not about creating one object out of another 10,000 objects, but about it being readable to anyone who wants to use it.
The authors of this initiative are convinced that this solution is an excellent alternative to mass production, and that it will reanimate and give new life to folk handicrafts. It can also strengthen and build inter-personal relations, because clients will order items at their nearest local craftsman's studio. And in doing so, they also engage directly in the production process, as they determine their colour preferences, etc.
uwolnić projekt - promo 3 from mediaschool on Vimeo.
The starting point is a researcher's look into the world of craft – its producers, its users and the items created. Piotr Szacki, a researcher at the Museum, has delved into the subject of folk craftsmanship for years. He has promoted it through creating exhibits, writing various texts, publishing films and interviews from field trips.
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The exhibit of the designs will take place in October, at the National Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw. The organisers have already begun talks and consultations with craftsmen and work on launching the project's website. Taking part in the project are the designers from AZE Design. Their works have travelled across the world, with exhibits in Berlin, Brussels, London, Łódź, Milan, Paris, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Warsaw and Vienna. They have also been featured in magazines such as Blueprint, Domus, Wallpaper, Interni, La Republicca, New York Times, Financial Times and Newsweek. Some of their designs are implemented as a brand in their own right, in collaboration with persons excluded from society and the long-term unemployed. Their projects make use of old handicraft techniques as well as the newest technology.
Uwolnić projekt (Free The Design) is also supported by the artist and designer Pani Jurek, Artur Gosk and Edyta Ołdak, the founder of an association called "Z siedzibą w Warszawie".
Read more about Polish crafts in the article Handicrafts Made in Poland.
source: National Museum of Ethnography
Edited by Anna Legierska, translated by Paulina Schlosser, 28/04/2014