Publish at June 15 2015 Updated August 07 2024
How did we do it?
The industrial era has produced an abundance of "optimized" goods in terms of process, design and profitability. Product qualities are pushed to the limit of perfection, beyond what a human being can achieve physically or economically.
The "snag" is that if the craftsman can't achieve it, no one can but a machine, resulting in "disposability", perfectly illustrated by the mountains of electronic devices and composite materials.
Hence the renewed interest in craftsmanship and raw materials: a wooden handle that can be remade if it breaks, a stone that can be cut, a piece of leather that can be stitched...
The Internet lets you discover how our heritage remains alive, through re-enactments and craft activities, as well as through the activities of thousands of enthusiasts. Here's a short tour of stonecutters, tanners, tailors and other craftsmen.
Official
Museums and interpretation centers appear to be the initial sources: those who carry out the reconstructions, who provide the basic material for writing the manuals, who are the subject of dozens of tourist videos or more official reports.
Where techniques are still practised by craftsmen, such as traditional stone-cutting, we'll also find well-documented practical manuals in today's standards.
Examples include
The enthusiasts
On another level, the number of amateur videos about traditional activities is surprisingly abundant. Watching some of these videos, often brilliant, makes you realize just how stimulating the pleasure of rediscovering a technique can be for many people. Enthusiastic sharing follows quite naturally.
Examples:
Peeping Toms
Without understanding anything, we can still appreciate the virtuosity of a craftsman or the beauty of a reconstruction. Taggers, instagrammers, snapchaters and other facebookers are now the links in a chain of dissemination of traditional culture, more or less competent or naive, but which museums are well advised to take advantage of.
Case in point:
Regular practitioners
Certain techniques, such as knitting, pottery or even cooking, retain a certain popularity: their techniques continue to evolve, even if their traditional foundations are well established and asserted.
A site like "Drops Design" on knitting (no sound on the videos, the image speaks for itself) or the dozens of traditional cooking sites demonstrate that a living tradition has nothing to fear from the Internet, and that even vanished traditions are sometimes revived thanks to the Internet.
In the classroom
Beyond the videos of trades that can be viewed (See 10,000 trades on video), even if a certain number of traditional activities are possible - knitting, pottery, cooking, papermaking, etc. - these are less and less frequently offered.
Faced with robotics, 3D manufacturing and video games, the competition is unequal. If we add the investment or "risk" associated with activities such as sculpture or carpentry, the only things likely to remain are vocational training courses and, perhaps, a few privileged moments in a history class. Change of era.
References
Stone cutting
Skin tanning
Making rope
Porcelain making
Knitting
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