Category Archives: Product

Dedicated Energy

Labrang Monastery


3km kora, 1174 prayer wheels. If each of these were linked up to a generator, would that be enough electricity to power the city?


3km kora, repeated prostration. If every movement was collected in their hand and knee pads, would that be enough energy to power their homes?

Weaving to the Future

Tongde


Last year I met Klaas who runs AmdoCraft (See post “Craft for Change”). This year I returned to stay with one of the Tibetan families he works with. After Zigdo proudly shows us some of the Amdo products his family makes, explaining the difference between good and bad quality felt, we watched the ladies spin wool thread and weave.  Already owning and using several of their bags that have been woven in this way, I suddenly discovered a new appreciation for them. Their traditional weaving method is time laborious but fascinatingly simple in its set-up with the correct knowledge. You cannot help but get a warm homely feeling as found metal rods, wooden sticks and plastic pipes are configured together to create beautifully woven lengths of fabric.

Num Sum

Dulaankhaan


Boldbaatar runs one of the three remaining traditional bow and arrow (num sum) workshops in Mongolia. Custom-designed and hand-created, he uses old working methods to manipulate a mixture of traditional and modern materials. Admittedly, I felt a twinge of disappointment when my eye wandered from the beautiful carved horn onto the green nylon rope. Was this development of combining natural and synthetic materials a decision made to save on time and cost, or was it to improve performance?


There is no denying that despite the addition of the synthetic, these num sums hold the mystic of an old Mongolian craft. I just hope that the modern world does not dilute too much of that magic.

 

Cornered

Central, Old Victoria Prison


Once a friend told me that he wanted to buy an old-style hospital bed for his home because they were charmingly minimal and practical. I thought he was mad. Why would you want to live with something from a place associated with illness and pain? Wandering through the disused cells of Victoria Prison, a charmingly minimal and practical corner table catches my eye. Now you may think I am mad. Why would I want to live with something from a place associated with confinement and punishment?

Outside the eery confined prison walls, this table could sit quite innocently with a vase of flowers perched atop in a simple domestic interior. Context is everything. As time passes, the table will gather memories and create a new story. All objects tell a story, but as with all good stories the plot develops and changes. Maybe my friend was not so mad after all.

Create Your Life

Man Xing Village

Sitting with HanYan’s family on their front porch, I find myself in admiration of their naturally creative Dai way of life. She is making a pouch, her father is building their new house’s toilet, and her granddad is making a bamboo container while at the same time supervising my first attempt at bamboo weaving.

Before her kind invitation to lunch (which comprised of vegetables and meats they had themselves grown and reared), I had passed by an elderly lady weaving at a loom in her front room, and met her neighbours Dai grandpa and grandma who were in the process of making bark paper for their traditional oiled-paper umbrellas.

Creating and making was everywhere you looked. We sat on bamboo stools her granddad had constructed, ate oranges off a table he had woven, refilled our rice bowls from an old bamboo pot her ancestors had made. The women wore beautiful tops and skirts they had instructed to be tailored in the style and fabric of their choice. For this community, creativity is not an occupation reserved for professionals, but for everyone as an integral part of life. In modern society, designers are always looking for ways to create bonds between user and products to prolong the life-cycles of objects and reduce excess consumption. The process of designing and making cannot help but create a strong attachment to the final outcome because of the thought and time required.  It makes me think, perhaps it is time that more of us stopped buying our lives pre-made in shops and instead created them for ourselves.

Don’t Worry, Make Money

Chengdu


Her father, being one of the few Chengdu Lacquer craftsmen remaining, was told by the government that his skill had to be continued. Unable to find students willing to commit to the long processes, she and her husband took over the business themselves. She proudly announces that they are the only ones still making and selling these precious objects, and she may be right. Earlier I had paid a visit to the one remaining factory, also set up by the government in an attempt to save the craft, which supposedly still produced traditional lacquerware. The eerily quiet building turned out to be more of a hobby workshop for the other remaining lacquer craftspeople of the city.

So what is the future for this craft?
As I left the lady’s shop, I was reassured that this craft will soon be dead, and that if I brought one of the several thousand dollar vases I would get a great return on my investment. It was not the answer I was expecting, but again she may be right.

Craft for Change

Xining


Klaas, along with his wife, runs a project turned business that provides the structure within which poor semi-nomadic Tibetans are given the chance to improve their lives in the form of an additional source of income. After providing them with training in wool handicraft techniques that have been developed and progressed to suit the style and standard required to be sold in the modern westernized world, AmdoCraft places orders of designed products from them. These are then sold to shops and also in their own AmdoCafes.

Sitting in the cafe with a hot chocolate and cake, I contemplate why I am so drawn to this project. As a designer it is satisfying, as it illustrates how a well considered project and intelligent design really can make a positive difference in people’s lives. As someone living in an increasingly competitive capitalist world it is comforting, as it proves that business and human kindness can co-exist successfully. As a month and half long observer of China it is exciting, as it is hope that for those who want to continue living their own ethnic minority lifestyles but not struggle in poverty, there is an alternative to relocation, financial handouts and absorption into acceptable mainstream society.