This research is a collaboration with the Vietnamese Handicraft Exporters Association (Vietcraft).
Working with its team and network of craftsmen from the rural areas of Northern Vietnam, we developed a series of objects to help stimulate the local crafts by inviting craftsmen to work with new techniques, materials and to collaborate amongst themselves.
One outcome was a series of raw prototypes for a line of vases and pots.
Each combines two materials specific to a kind of craft, so tha two different craftsmen, from different workshops would end up working together.
Although they are far to be market-ready, each one showcases the process of collaboration and solving problems with the hands and minds.
For this specific series, we worked with a craftsman that originally casts plaster but accepted our invitation to try concrete casting for the first time, and asked the metal and rattan artisans to integrate their work into this quite unusual concrete structure.
They were provided with just a few sketches with basic information and let them interpret and turn these drawings into objects.
We realized it's when craftsmen are allowed to be creative and not just hired as mass producers that they can gain new experience and develop their own practice.
Concrete, rattan, steel, straw
Tallest Vase: H 18” (46cm)
Smallest Vase: H 14” (36cm)
Large Pot: H 14” (36cm)
Commissioned by the Hanoi Design Center
Hanoi, Vietnam, 2014.
