Wood + Craft
The collaborative field around 'wood and craft' as a dispositive of an ecological-economic transformation proces
Socio-political, but also aesthetic prioritization can be applied to the material wood, its ways of processing and usage, individual and international developments in the craft sector can be read off, not least economic and ecological weightings of the present. Argumentative ascriptions such as "renewable raw material" or "unencumbered building material", which combine ecological with economic interests, characterize wood as a coveted commodity. If one also takes a closer look at the woodworking trades, then tensions between environmental protection and the use of resources become evident, as well as between technical innovation and traditional craftsmanship, between small and medium-sized enterprises and international trade.
The research project explores these ambivalences by focusing on actors in the craft trades, trade and politics by analyzing ways of using and meaning networks and understanding the interaction forms of material and human as a dispositive. It asks how the use and significance of wood is currently changing, and discusses the extent to which claims to sustainability and successful economics interact in an argumentative way and materialize in wood.
The connective interest in materials and the processing profession implies a micro-perspective approach; its comparision using spatially limited examination contexts allows to work out cultural patterns and to classify them into larger contexts. Thus, the research project intends to enrich the social, but also scientific discourses around trend, growth and competition, sustainability and commons, material and design.