Over the coming weeks, we will explore craft futures through encounters between artistic craft and data, experiments with co-craft methods, and new visions of a world shaped by the principles of craft rather than mass production in the Super Ö at the Röhsska Museum of Design and Craft, in Gothenburg.
Between May 20 and June 4, HDK-Valand is curating a new exhibition in Röhsska’s Super Ö, which explores craft through two research projects: the Horizon Europe project HEPHAESTUS and Transforming the City for Play. Can craft offer alternative ways of organizing work and production? Can it create new forms of participation in public space? What happens when craft meets data and digital processes? These are some of the questions the exhibition addresses.
The space is framed by the HEPHAESTUS speculative investigation Brave New World, where the Italian artist duo D20 uses generative AI to imagine an alternative timeline in which industrialization did not displace traditional craft. By engaging fourteen different craft artists from Dals Långed in Sweden, Bornholm in Denmark, and Bassano del Grappa and Venice in Italy, new craft-based narratives are constructed — envisioning alternative ways of living and designing society, thereby opening space for other possible futures.
“Brave New World is an exploration where we’ve developed relationships with craft artists in different parts of Europe and created a shared space for speculation. Our artistic investigation spans both analog and digital technologies and is directed toward both the past and the future,” says Elena Raviola from HDK-Valand, who is curating the space.
Encounters between craftwork and datawork
The space also features four experimental encounters between craft and computers. Three of these take place within a residency program where craft artists Lukas Arons, Rob Curran, and Linnea Dalstrand visited FabLab Venice to push the boundaries of their practices using 3D scanning, 3D printing, and laser cutting.
The fourth experiment connects clay, motion sensors, artificial intelligence, and 3D printing. Here, craft artist and HDK-Valand lecturer Theodor Harper-Davis, working from his studio in the UK and Studio Alight in Gothenburg, explores how hours of craft labor can be transformed into data, 3D printed, and turned back into objects — across geographical borders.
“The four experiments offer a starting point for reflecting on the futures of craft and what it means to datafy craft — and to craft with data. How do craft artists engage with new technology? What happens when the material processes of craft encounter data and data-driven work? The results will be discussed at a panel and mingling event on June 4,” says Elena Raviola, Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Professor in Design Management at the University of Gothenburg.
The exhibition will be inaugurated on Wednesday 21 May, 16-18, and will be activated by a number of experiments and seminars.
More info here: https://rohsska.se/utstallningar/designhistorier/super-o/brave-new-world/