'Crafting Futures' seeks ways to revalue the knowledge and skills of crafts and tap into their potential for addressing current challenges in sustainability, innovation, inclusion, lifelong learning, and urban transformation. The project examines and transforms the assessment & validation mechanisms by which crafts knowledge and know-how (CKK) is evaluated, to enhance its value added for economy and society in Flanders.
'Crafting Futures' is developed by an interdisciplinary team from UAntwerpen and KU Leuven, in collaboration with the schools of art, KASK in Gent, Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and Sint Lucas Antwerpen. Moreover, the project is realized in close collaboration with partners from the field. During the course of the project, three stakeholder working groups are set up, based on specific themes and craft contexts: crafts education, maker spaces, and finally, policy and entrepreneurship.
This unique academic and field consortium brings together a broad range of expertise ranging from pedagogy, critical heritage studies, anthropology, design sciences, cultural management, law, and history to art and design practice.
By combining critical analysis with an action-based approach, the project will prototype and develop new models for validating crafts in educational, policy-making, and economic contexts. This will result in new learning formats, classification systems, legal instruments, business models, and policy recommendations for field practitioners, policy makers and educational organisms.
More information: www.craftingfutures.be
With the support of FWO / SBO
From the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, 'Crafting Futures' is coordinated by Els de bruyn and Vivi Touloumidi, and Andrea Cammarosano is involved as artistic researcher.
Andrea Cammarosano brings a practice-based research approach that draws from his experience in both design and education. His focus is on creative and productive networks, looking at how exchanges within these networks can strengthen collaboration. Through his PhD research at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, he explored the dynamics of collaborative networks within schools and the intersection between education and industry.
In the 'Crafting Futures' project, he applies these insights to hybrid networks, such as maker spaces and collectives, where different sectors and actors come together. He is particularly interested in exploring how projects can be scaled up without compromising creativity, individual motivation, and organizational sustainability. Another key area of focus is co-creation within these hybrid networks, where creative, technical, and social elements intersect. His goal is to develop and test business models that can support and sustain this diversity and complexity, while ensuring scalability and economic sustainability.
