Blog

Craft & Kranti - Revolution of the Heart and Hand
-By Bandana Tiwari
A virtual keynote converted into written notes

Craft is such a wonderful method of learning, that reminds us about humanity in each one of us. It's a different way of creating which brings human beings at the forefront of the creative act and so the whole purpose of creativity changes when you talk about human beings at the centre. Human beings allowing nature also to be a part of that environment.and we know if you go to any artisan culture, any artisan cluster in any part of the world, you will the interconnectedness of nature and man. For far too long we’ve lived in a world where human beings have thought themselves to be the only species that matter and we’ve pillaged and we’ve lived by rules of financial  gain that was the only barometer of success and I think that is a fallacy of modern day capitalism.

Most of the countries that I have lived in, almost more than fifty percent of the people are from the rural parts of those countries and so much is dependent on farmlands and artisanal skills and craft. So craft needs to be resurrected and everyone must know about it.

Lidewij Edelkoort who is premier trend forecasting expert in the world, named as one of the top fifty influential people in fashion by ‘Time Magazine’, even before Covid she talks about it is the indigenous cultures of the world that will be at the forefront of change. When we talk about indigenous cultures we mean the indigenous techniques that have been passed from generation to generation, that is going to fuel our creative souls and can we look at fashion and products in a different light? Can we give humanity to our creativity, because craft can do that. Craft is about the touch and feel as I said interconnectedness of nature and so craft can play such an important role because more important than the product is the storytelling. You know the moment we focus on craft as you exemplary artisans have, we can talk about the different narratives, the language changes. We can talk about heritage, ancestors, animism, nature, environment, respect, dignity, morality, ethics. All of this comes into the medium of craft because when it is made by hand and made with love and consciousness for humanity the product doesn’t remain just a product. The product becomes prized because it goes beyond just something that is beautiful or aesthetically pleasing. It talks about the people behind it, their lives, their families, their communities. It talks about processes. How slow is the process?  How much time does it takes to weave, to craft a piece of jewelry with your hand? Involved people and while you are making it.. Is that not meditation of some kind?

So craft brings in all these ideological terminologies that we’ve forgotten in the fast fashion world. Or even in the high fashion world, where a narrative is so much about gain, profit, trend, the transients, the heroine of our times is the trends that have to change every season and make us buy more and more for less and less with giving no respect to the people who make them. The invisible hands that touch them, the invisible faces that go into making a single garment or a piece of jewelry. Craft can resurrect the humanity and for that I am truly grateful to all you artisans and designers who focus on communities and made by hand cultures to bring this conversation to forefront because it is about time that we went beyond just consumerism. This affects people's lives and humanity and dignity and how we buy and what we buy and how we consume is directly affecting climate change. So are we climate warriors? We must be. Are we activists as consumers? We must be. That is our birthright to be an activist and when we come to craft cultures of the world, the one thing I would love to reiterate and I say this perhaps almost every talk is that when you are working with craft and let this be something that each one of us propagates to the others. With craft there must be a fundamental understanding of how we are going to engage with the craft tradition of the world.

For far too long we’ve seen big brands pillage from the customs and the traditions of ancient, age-old traditions of Mexico, of Romania, of India. All these incredible civilisations where the artisans and the generations before them, who created those techniques have not been given many credits.

There should be three C’s that should be fundamental to anyone involved in the craft traditions of the world. Number one is CONSENT - please make sure that whoever is involved in the craft traditions of the world, you get the consent of the community that you’re taking from. That you get the consent of the culture that you are taking from. Second is CREDIT- please credit the providence of what you are using whether it is a piece of embroidery, a technique that has been passed down from generations. Something that a grandmother holds on to. So they need to get the credit. Where does it come from? That is very important. Who has ownership over it? That is very important  for people and consumers to know and of course the third is COMPENSATION. - that they must get money for what you have borrowed from their traditions. That it can not be compensated. So the 3 C’s are pretty simple, Consent, Credit and Compensation when you are working with craft. 

What craft allows? Personally me as a writer, as a storyteller, is what a wonderful opportunity we have during covid times to understand the significance of what regionality means. We’ve lived far too long in a world that was so modernised, that we became a globalised world of tees and hoodies and in that process of fast fashion production where we all lost our identity, our regionality. We forgot how to celebrate difference. So what craft cultures can teach us today, which you as designers and design intervention professionals of the world and artisans on top of the pyramid as far as I am concerned, what you can teach us as consumers is that craft brings in the kind of narrative we need now during covid times to remind us of our humanity, to remind us that when we pull ourselves out of this mess what kind of a person are you going to be? Because what we consume is going to define who we are. So all of this is so interrelated. When you reach a stage where you are talking about this interconnectivity, this interrelatedness, what this brilliant Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who Dr. Martin Luther King recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize, she uses the word interbeing, so if we elevate ourselves into being these inter beings that so fundamentally and intrinsically understand how we are connected to nature, our environment, then how is craft not a spiritual act, how sustainability not a spiritual act. That is where craft is concerned.

Kranti- in sanskrit means revolution from inside. There’s a wonderful quote by Gandhi where he says “when the enemy is within, why fight an external war”. So this revolution of the self is about changing our own personal habits, consuming habits to affect change in the wider world. For far too long we’ve looked at sustainability as something that is so vague and we always expect policy change and government intervention, NGOs to come to the forefront, which is all wonderful, we do need that but very seldom do we realise what is our personal hand in this dialogue and what am I as a human being doing or not doing, to uphold the ideals of being a sustainable human being. So Kranti - revolution of the self, is about taking personal ownership and I derive all this inspiration obviously from Mahatma Gandhi who when he said “Be the change you want  to see in the world”, comes very much from acknowledging your inner self, your inner enemy, that we have to fight first before we go and affect change in the world. I am a true believer in this and that takes me again straight to the heart of..if i start changing myself, if my sense of morality is going to affect how I deal with the world that is full of species, our environment and if it's a good act then how is that not a spiritual act. Let me go back again to sanskrit in the Vedas, I’m talking about the secular philosophy of Karma and Dharma. I am Nepali, grew up in India so you can well imagine that the Vedas and the Sanskrit philosophies play a huge role in our lives and we tend to sort of undermine the importance of these words that are so loaded .. dharma, karma… Here in Bali, probably everyones got a tattoo on their bodies without understanding what they mean. From my little bit of understanding let me tell you what I follow is that Dharma is your moral compass, what defines your morality, your personal morality. So if you’re given any situation is life , you can choose this way or that way and that is decided by your own moral compass and the decision that you make is then what defines your Karma- your destiny but you are in full ownership of your destiny, the destiny is not bereft of your personal will. So the more I look at sustainability, which are all interrelated-craft, made by hand, sustainability, community, they are all so interrelated. What I really believe, if you are a sustainable human being then you are a spiritual human being and that is a very powerful to really feel inside you, feel within the revolution of your soul. I know that it sounds abstract and esoteric but it's time that we dipped into great philosophies of the past, wisdom of the sages. To be an activist in your head and be a sage in your heart, I think thats the way forward. We need leaderships of different kinds- Buddhist leadership- i just read a paper on buddhist economy, which is fascinating. We need sage politics. So we need to take ownership of what this revolution of the self means and how important it is to impact change in our communities and perhaps our nations and in fact our world. The same Vietnamese buddhist monk that I was talking about, used to run an exercise with the audience who came to listen to her and she would give them a piece of white paper, plain white paper and make them stare into it and she would say “look into that white empty piece of paper, if you are a poet then you will see that there are clouds in it and you know if they are clouds that means it is full of rain and if there was no rain it wouldn’t feed our forests. If the forests didn’t get the rain there would be no trees. If there were no trees, there would be no lumberjacks to cut it and turn them into pieces of paper that you are looking at. So the entire universe is in that white sheet of paper that you are holding”.

For me these are the anecdotes and wisdom that propel me personally to push my dialogue on sustainability further because we need a change of heart. Let's leave the policies, to the governments,let people take ownership over the stakeholders who need to take their own responsibilities but as individuals what is my responsibility? For me, my focus on craft and kranti makes me feel exhilarated for good change, for change that is going to benefit both our environment and people.