On preserving heritage – Bogdan Kosak
Craftsmanship is built on heritage and strives for excellence. Any attempts to use crafts to achieve external goals, ideas and programs disturb this balance and cause losses in the intangible dimension of heritage.
Since the end of the first decade of the 21st century, interest in crafts has increased, probably resulting from the longing for objects with added value, based on the belief that they were made by people "... leisurely from local raw materials, with respect for materials, beautiful in their imperfection and simplicity" 1 . It is not the first time that we have looked for values in regions that are on the margins of economic and social life. From the end of the 19th century, inspiration was found in folk art and industry to build a national style and stimulate the economic development of poor regions. But wasn't heritage treated instrumentally? Have sufficient conditions been created for the continuation and independent development of workshops based on your own technological and stylistic experiences? Usually, care was taken to ensure that they met the animators' expectations. Previously, the emphasis was on uniqueness and exoticism as a luxurious addition to the functioning of modern society. The next stage focused on mass scale and accessibility. Due to the culturally and economically appropriate promotion of traditional folk crafts and their inclusion in the natural consumption cycle of the entire society, practices have emerged focused solely on accumulating profit, consequently leading to a decline in quality and directing the attention of recipients to other areas of material culture. While due to the war, the ideas and programs initiated in the interwar period did not have a chance to fully come into being and bring the expected results, already during the establishment and flourishing of Cepelia's activities, the continuators of the ideas from the 1930s2 led in the 1970s and 1980s. age to exclude all craft activities from the consumer's interests. Will the new interest in crafts be able to restore the traditions of a given workshop, maintaining the continuity of developed practices? Will there still be a chance to experience authentic folk handicrafts and crafts, and to what extent will the production result from external interference, trade and designers, resulting in pseudo-folk and pseudo-craft items that respond to the demand created to increase profit? The business factor is necessary in a heritage preservation system, but when it comes to the fore it does more harm than good 3 . Initiating programs to force craftsmen and folk artists into the framework of the political and economic system led to a situation where support was provided to plants producing ceramics on Cepelia's request using industrial methods, imitating vessels traditionally made on a potter's wheel. The product became mass-produced, but not necessarily cheaper. In 2018, IKEA repeated this model by introducing a ceramic vase 4 from the Industriell collection, imitating a hand-shaped vessel. Under the slogan of paying tribute to imperfection, the object is a denial of the values that memory strives for. It is doubtful whether by paying attention to the very fact of imperfection and error as a value, we will rebuild the proper position of craftsmanship in contemporary society. Imperfection is a side effect, not a goal in itself. One of the features of craftsmanship and the craftsman's ambition is the pursuit of perfection, what we currently encounter is a caricature of craftsmanship.
At the end of the 20th century, when it was brought to the attention of the owner of a porcelain shop that the offered milk jug from one of the best companies had a crooked spout, he replied that thanks to this the customer could be sure that the work was done by human hands, one should envy the excellent position in a difficult situation. . Unfortunately, twenty-something years later, such an explanation has become a primitive way to make easy money.
In the last decade, we can observe positive actions on many levels, seeking to reconcile mass and uniqueness, but isn't craftsmanship still treated very narrowly and limited in such imaginations to simple, uncomplicated activities using primitive tools? How such thinking can affect production is well illustrated by an example from an industry whose activity is mainly based on craft skills. The short-sighted practice of the Bogucice porcelain factory, and then Porcelain Silesia, contributed to the departure of the best employees, often heirs of several generations of craft traditions, due to financial undervaluation 5 . In their place, new workers were hired for lower wages but with fewer skills, which interrupted the continuity of workshop traditions and thus decreased the quality of the porcelain produced. Marginalizing the role of the craftsman in creating a team developing a new project is another factor in reducing the quality of production. The lack of developed methods of cooperation with craftsmen, downplaying and not using their capabilities, "the source of creative energy in the team" as Walter Gropius aptly called it 6 , neglecting manual skills and developed methods of working with the material, may lead to the abandonment of the production of an interesting project. This is what happened in the case of Erykah Trzewik-Drost's design for Bogucice in the early 1960s. The lack of solid cooperation with craftsmen in the factory resulted in the withdrawal of the Epos 7 design from production after the implementation stage.
The example of Lauren Bowker confirms Gropius' theoretical assumptions. Her color-changing fabrics became an inspiration and basis for designing devices for monitoring body functions or the state of the environment. This example also confirms research conducted in Great Britain in 2016 on processes and the impact of innovation through crafts. Research has shown that 'craft skills and knowledge have a significant economic impact and significant potential to further drive economic growth and innovation in other sectors'. This model of cooperation can be used in all areas of production. But this can only happen thanks to the belief that contemporary craftsmanship is part of the reality around us and influences it. That's why we shouldn't treat crafts like an open-air museum, they have the right to develop. Even in ceramics, one of the oldest fields of human activity, only a craftsman proficient in his profession and aware of his heritage is ready to take full advantage of the possibilities of 3D printing. The process of replacing the potter with a machine requires the use of the potter's experience and physical contact with clay. Lack of awareness of heritage results in learning the craft from scratch. Regardless of the use of tools and in what areas, we are always dealing with "works of hands, minds and hearts". Regardless of the material value of the items produced, they place human work on a completely different level, valuing it appropriately.
Bogdan Kosak - graduate of the Faculty of Glass and Ceramics, Academy of Fine Arts
in Wroclaw. He designs and produces household ceramics
and ceramic sculpture. He conducts workshops and meetings promoting traditional
craftsmanship and modern design in ceramics. In the years 1995 – 2008 he was the director
model shop at Porcelana Śląska in Katowice. In order to implement individual solutions in artistic and functional ceramics, he founded the Ceramic Modelarnia in 1995. Since 2012, he has been running a ceramics studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. Kosak's works were presented at 19 individual exhibitions and 82 collective exhibitions in Poland and abroad. There are, among others: in the collections of the National Museum in Warsaw and the National Museum in Krakow. Winner of main awards in the following competitions: Śląska Rzecz 2006, 2011 and On The Table at Łódź Design 2019. Scholarship holder of the Marshal of the Silesian Voivodeship in 2013
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