Johanna Seelemann makes use of design as a device to carve a future for the craft neighborhood of her homeland

The connection between craft and design may be tumultuous. To many individuals, craft preserves the previous, whereas design forges the long run. And but, prior to now decade, we’ve got witnessed an awesome resurgence within the observe of craft within the discipline of design. As the implications of our globalised, homogenised and rampantly business behaviours grow to be ever-more evident, we’re re-evaluating the potential of craft, not simply as an alternative choice to our wanton methods, however as an answer for our ignominious ills. The facility of thoughts, hand and materials assembly the wants of individuals in time and place is the unique goal of each craft and design. Absolutely they will work collectively in concord slightly than in opposition?

That is the query that Leipzig-based designer Johanna Seelemann has tasked herself with answering in her observe, which is at the moment targeted on the Ore Mountain area, or Erzgebirge in German, of her native homeland. Travelling by means of this hilly borderland between east Germany and the Czech Republic, guests will occur upon indicators outdoors each second home pointing to carpentry workshops.

Johanna Seelemann’s craft impressed by her homeland

Following the decline of the mining trade within the seventeenth and 18th centuries, the canny inhabitants turned their consideration to their different large useful resource, bushes, with wood-turning being the dominant modus operandi. The Erzgebirge area has since grow to be the epicentre of manufacturing for the actual ornamental objects that one associates with Mitteleuropean Christmas markets: nutcrackers, fir bushes, candle arches and pyramids. ‘All of us grew up with them in our properties,’ says Seelemann. ‘They have been a core a part of our annual rituals within the run-up to Christmas.’ Right this moment, there are round 16,500 wood-turners within the Erzgebirge area.

Up to now so cosy, it’s possible you’ll be pondering. Might there be a extra idyllic picture of outdated males in woody workshops rigorously making snowy collectible figurines for probably the most great time of the 12 months? The uncomfortable fact is that, inside the subsequent decade, 50 per cent of the workshops are set to shut. Because the outdated males hold up their instruments in retirement, there aren’t any younger folks ready by the wooden piles.

The truth is, there are few younger folks dwelling in these villages, not to mention younger woodworkers eager to proceed the household enterprise. Salaries for the artisans are low and it’s not a lovely proposition for youthful generations. Mixed with the broader secularisation of society, dwindling enthusiasm is rendering this explicit craft custom, and the communities it helps, not simply precarious, however critically endangered.

Enter Seelemann and her explicit mode of design as an anthropological and social device for enchancment. She describes her ‘fascination for unravelling the objects that we would take with no consideration’. For 2 and a half years, along with photographer and  fellow Erzgebirger Robert Damisch, the pair have been documenting and gently infiltrating the neighborhood to evaluate how greatest they could reawaken what they consider to be a sleeping big. Seelemann talks about their mission plainly: ‘We are attempting to attach craftspeople to youthful folks and completely different audiences. We’re fascinated by creating platforms past the Christmas markets and past the area. The information and talent of this area is immense and has monumental potential.’

The primary bodily output of Seelemann is the arresting ‘Satellite tv for pc’, a candy-coloured LED-lit chandelier. Sponsored by the Dregeno Seiffen woodworkers’ affiliation in Erzgebirge, it was commissioned by the curator Alice Stori Liechtenstein and exhibited at her always-fascinating Schloss Hollenegg for Design earlier this 12 months. A rambunctious creation, combining the fantastical creativeness of Roald Dahl with the exuberant expression of the Memphis Group, it’s completely comprised of part elements from the Erzgebirge workshops that may in any other case have discovered their place as well mannered candle pyramids or noses for nutcrackers on the windowsill of a German suburban semi. In contrast, ‘Satellite tv for pc’ belongs centre stage in a palace.

This tactic of design is much cleverer than one may first assume. It’s not about making humble craft acceptable for a gallery; within the first occasion, it’s a communication device for capturing folks’s consideration. ‘Wow’ and ‘gosh’ may be very a lot the supposed response. ‘Alice Stori pushed us for one thing wild and experimental,’ says Seelemann. ‘The true difficulty within the area, notably the place younger individuals are involved, is the angle in direction of it,’ says Damisch. ‘Our aim is to draw consideration and encourage folks to suppose in a different way, to open their minds to the potential of what may occur with what exists. Opening up a dialogue with a propositional object was our main goal,’ he provides.

In her Leipzig studio, Seelemann is holding up a sequence of intricately turned and carved wood bushes, every with a distinct texture and distinct persona in response to its tooling approach. Away from the Erzgebirge workshops, in Seelemann’s palms, the bushes are liberated to grow to be one thing much less literal. She is engaged on tables and lights, incorporating the whimsical properties of handmade parts into intriguing objects for a spread of home functions. Importantly, they bear the hallmark and character of the Erzgebirge custom – Seelemann is just not attempting to disguise or dilute the hallmark expertise that made the area well-known, slightly she is recontextualising them to enhance their potential.

‘Lots of the craftspeople wrestle with the concept of change and discover what we’re doing stunning,’ admits Seelemann. ‘We perceive, after all; we’re consciously attempting to deliver a distinct perspective to one thing acquainted, one thing that folks really feel deeply connected to. Some folks won’t ever settle for that bushes may be upended to grow to be desk legs,’ she laughs. ‘And but, our design methodology is to be radical to create house for younger folks to think about a life for themselves in Erzgebirge. We aren’t simply looking for folks to hold on traditions, we hope to encourage folks to evolve heritage expertise into future traditions. Now we have to encourage folks to grasp that they will deliver their very own imaginative and prescient to the workbench extra than simply taking up the workshop from their father.’

Erzgebirge’s prognosis is echoed in a thousand communities and cultures the place profitable artisanal traditions have backed themselves right into a nook to grow to be crafts in stasis greater than evolution. Simply as design has more and more seemed to craft of late to assist re-establish its human roots and soul, so the methodology of design can repay the favour by serving to craft to resurrect its relevance and potential in modern life. What’s at stake is extra than simply nutcrackers, it’s the information intrinsic to the social infrastructure of a rural economic system and its cultural identification.