Studio 19.1 Definition

At the end of August 2023, I travelled to Cheongju, South Korea, as a judge for the Craft and the City category of the Cheongju Craft Biennale. It was one of those unexpectedly serendipitous occasions where two of my seemingly disparate identities coincided: urban planning and craft. The theme of the Biennale was “The Geography of Objects,” and the guest country was Spain.

The objects in the exhibitions were spectacular, innovative and wonderfully reflective of the possibilities and potentialities of craft. Some of them were provocative in how materials were used; others were astounding in how they showcased the artisans’ skills and talents. It was a delight to run into pieces by Canadian artists, including Nova Scotia-based ceramicist Toni Losey, whom we featured in the Fall/Winter 2020 issue of Studio.

The theme for this issue of Studio is “Definition,” and rather than attempt to assign meaning to craft or determine what it could be, we are most interested in the demarcations, distinctions and clarifications of craft. To that end, the articles in this issue reflect these explorations.

Julie Hollenbach’s essay on the multiplicities of craft archives draws from Black feminist thought to point out that the absences in canonical craft thinking indicate the presence of alternate craft histories. And in Michael Prokopow’s text, the questions posed of craft by the processes of decay and destruction are explored.

While at Collect 2024, Mary McIntyre interviewed Kye-Yeon Son whose work was being exhibited. Their conversation explores the fragility, endurance, emotion and emptiness conveyed in Son’s work. Multidisciplinary artist Charmaine Lurch’s wire study of Sycorax (the name of Caliban’s unseen mother in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest) explores and invites considerations of science, history, landscape and the female subject.

The 2024 Saidye Bronfman Award, Canada’s top distinction for excellence in craft, was awarded to textile and fibre artist Louise Lemieux Bérubé. Julien Silvestre, executive director of the Conseil des métiers d’art du Québec, writes about Bérubé’s career, service and impact on Canadian craft. Also recognized this year was Inuk printmaker Shuvinai Ashoona, who received the Governor General’s Artistic Achievement Award.

Prairie Interlace is an ambitious project involving a travelling exhibition, an online presence, a symposium and a publication. In this issue, the curators write about how the project came to be, and the unique challenges of documenting a “doubly disguised” segment of Canadian craft history.

For Inquiries, we asked architect and co-founder of Studio of Contemporary Architecture, Tura Cousins Wilson, about his practice and approach. We’re also delighted to feature poetry by Welsh-Canadian visual artist Anne Steves, whose writing and fibre installations explore loss, beauty and relation, and are inspired by encounters with birds, dead and alive.

Nehal El-Hadi Editor-In-Chief