Posted on September 20, 2009
Erica Elk, the manager of the CCDI, talks about craft as living heritage.
Let's get one thing straight - I'm not a heritage expert or very well versed in debates about heritage in South Africa. I am the manager of a craft development institute firmly rooted in the contemporary world of getting new products into local and international markets. And in my spare time, I'm trying to develop my own practice as a contemporary artist. So my life and work is firmly rooted in the here and now.
And my 'outsider' impression of the heritage sector - at least in South Africa - is that it's all about the past and preservation.
So my immediate challenge when asked to write this guest blog was to try to come to terms with an understanding of heritage and how it fits into our contemporary practice. So I headed off to 'google' some definitions.
One said: 'Heritage is practices that are handed down from the past by tradition' and linked it to the word inheritance that it defined as 'any attribute or immaterial possession that is inherited from ancestors'. The Department of Arts and Culture (Freedom Park) defines heritage as "that which we inherit: the sum total of wild life and scenic parks, sites of scientific or historical importance, national monuments, historic buildings, works of art, literature and music, oral traditions and museum collections together with their documentation."
So far the track is predicable. Heritage includes preservation, excavation, restoration, memorialisation and 'display' of tangible and intangible things including natural, cultural and historical objects and practises.
I'm still out in the cold.
But then there's a glimmer of hope. Another definition I find says all of that BUT goes on to say, 'Most important, (heritage) is the range of contemporary activities, meanings, and behaviours that we draw from them'.
So I'm on more familiar territory now. Heritage can also be about contemporary activity. Which helps me, finally, address the question of craft and heritage.
I see craft as a process and not an object. For me it is about the process of production that involves the hand (and some tools) and the imagination. There are two, interlinked, things happening here.
The one is the process of making. It is a physical activity that requires technical skill and ability. It is also a mental activity that requires knowledge of material and what you can do with it. The process of making -the combination of the two - is passed from one generation to another - and becomes our heritage and tradition. It used to be passed informally through the family or village; and then more formally through the guilds; and in the last 100 years through technical colleges and tertiary institutions. Into this mix we have to insert the acquisition and discovery of new knowledge, new materials, new techniques - otherwise the world would not have progressed.
Nevertheless, today, in our industrialised, and now increasingly digitised, world we are moving further and further away from these modes of production and there is a real danger that these skills will be lost.
At one level, this is good - as it means the objects made by hand will increase in value (assuming there is a 'market' that values the handmade). But we still cannot afford to lose these skills. Apart from sentimental and nostalgic reasons - there might be practical reasons, as our production and consumption patterns need to change in the next decade or so as we learn to deal with the finite natural resources on this planet.
But more importantly I think we can't afford to lose these skills because of the other factor in the process of production - the imagination. We are not machines. We are human beings - and the process of making things, of manifesting ideas, of embellishing and adorning our persons and our environment - is an expression of our humanity.
Our heritage - as a combination of all physical, natural and spiritual experiences of the world - is a critical factor in this as it is the lifeblood on which creative people draw. Whether it is the individual's own internal experience of life or their interpretation of the physical and social world they and their ancestors inhabit. This is a huge resource, particularly if we think about the diverse range of cultures in South Africa and our complex history and social dynamics.
Thankfully the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (including 'traditional craftsmanship') supports my view in that it argues:
"Any efforts to safeguard traditional craftsmanship must focus not on preserving craft objects - no matter how beautiful, precious, rare or important they might be - but on creating conditions that will encourage artisans to continue to produce crafts of all kinds, and to transmit their skills and knowledge to others."
So what are these conditions that we need to create. For us to make use of our heritage we need:
1) To store it, keep it, preserve it, and document it
2) To know where it is and how to find it
3) The 'permission' to adapt and change and make it relevant
4) The continuing transmission of knowledge and skills
5) An audience (or consumer base) to engage, appreciate and buy products to ensure that craft continues to be practiced, providing livelihoods and reflecting creativity and our humanity.
We are doing some of these things - some better than others. We need to do more. And maybe we even need to do it differently.
The arts - in all their forms - manifest our culture, heritage and identity. And we need to be forging closer links between them. So we need to bring heritage out of its temperature-controlled box and into the real world.
One of the obstacles in our way is the separation of the development and promotion of arts and culture from heritage. It's a physical/organisational separation of the past and the present. We need to break down these silos and do more to pull the past into the present and engage with it critically. Not all cultural practices of the past were good. We need to be able to be critical of them with the wisdom of hindsight. On the other hand there are things that used to be done that we have lost that we desperately need to regain. Our morality. Virtue. Family. Place. All things that our country, which is suffering from untreated post-traumatic stress, needs in bucket loads.
And then if we truly believe these skills and traditions are so important, that we want them to be part of our living heritage then we need to invest in them. Without strings attached. So much of the funding for the arts comes with outcomes of: how many jobs, how many people trained, how many businesses started, what value of orders and exports. I know. This is the tread mill we are on. And I'm not saying it's not important. People need to eat. But people also need to create. And if we want our past and our current to survive into the future - with any veracity and value - we need to invest in it now. And investments don't always have immediate returns. The state should be putting much more resources into art for its own sake. For the pure pleasure for the creator and the participator in being alive.
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