Collaborate project spotlight

Find out more about the partnership between the Crafts Council and Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas, Glasgow Caledonian University London

The cultural value of craft

Crafts Council with Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas, Professor of Marketing and Sustainable Business, Glasgow Caledonian University London (GCU London)

Disrupting the craft canon: the cultural value of craft

This partnership was awarded a research grant in June 2022 as part of the first round of funding of the Centre for Cultural Value’s Collaborate programme.

The fund looks to support innovative new partnerships between cultural sector practitioners and academics to explore under-explored questions around cultural value.

Photo: Dalia James, weaver, by Joan Fernandez Blasco

What will the project explore?

This interdisciplinary partnership brings together academics from GCU London, led by Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas, with experienced research and participation practitioners from Crafts Council, the UK’s national charity for craft.

The team will place social justice as central to measures of cultural value. They will explore, develop and test measures of the cultural value and wellbeing attached to craft by racially minoritized communities who are excluded from the cultural space of craft.

Holding two place-based craft-making events, they will identify and recognise the value of the knowledge, experience and cultural heritage of makers of colour in professional, community or other crafts spaces. The project will investigate the impacts of race, racism, immigration and migration on cultural production, making and value.

We will update you with more findings from the project over the course of the next year.