The Organization of Power between Artisan and Designer in Indian Craft

Design education in India espouses a certain romanticization of her craft. As designers, there is an implied expectation to step in and save our rich national heritage through the design of products that can be sold in global markets. For me, this is a very shallow understanding of the artificial. India’s recent design values and history have been shaped by a predominantly euro-centric perspective which ignores and negates the practices of non-western cultures and their design history.

The difference in class between designer and artisan renders the artisan speechless when the designer is speaking because the input of ‘expert knowledge’ hinders the artisan from claiming their agency and prevents them from developing an identity outside of being craft producers. To keep up with market demands, these brands bring in designers to create ‘contemporary’ products that can be sold abroad. The artisans can mindlessly reproduce these products and as the scale of production grows, the craft community is faced with a social change the consequences of which are destabilizing and very often not foreseen as their agency and freedoms are threatened.

In 2001, over 63% of artisans were self-employed and the cluster operated as a holarchy with nested units of artisans on a horizontal hierarchy where the artisans functioned as “problem solvers, managers and strategizers” (Wilkinson-Weber, 2016). But as more and more artisans began to work for designers and brands, the repetition of work and lack of control has caused an alienation from their craft, removing the heart and mind from the holy trinity of creativity (hand, heart and mind)(Ruskin, 2006).

In such a structure, a power imbalance exists between the artisan and the designer. The artisan is secumbered entirely from any creative and decision process that the designer is engaged in. In the weaving cluster of Aspura, weavers say that they were ‘only’ menial laborers, because their skills were reduced to mechanical hand work that reproduces design from a technical map without being creative or exerting any kind of mental effort. The rug brand, Jaipur Rugs’ Manchahaa Project, which I dissect in this blog post (The Artisan Original: Design from India’s Grassroots), has brought some measure of agency back, but this is only the beginning of a long journey back to reclaiming agency for the artisan.

Craft has grown to become a strong part of India’s post colonial identity and the country has since then tried to restore its handicraft traditions and promote the handicraft industry but this has resulted in a strong cultural commodification of both the craft producer and the craft object. The question now arises, how might we break free of the commodification that ensnares every aspect of our world? And was the Gandhian vision of an India restored to its traditional cultural roots ever a viable option for post colonial India?

In looking for a fuller understanding of the role of design, we have to take note of its direct relevance to the well-being and freedom of the craftsperson, its indirect role through influencing social change, and its direct role through influencing economic production — Sen, A. (2013)

Bibliography

1. Kasturi, P. (2005). Designing Freedom. Design Issues.
2. Jaitly, J. (2001). Viśvakarmā’s children: Stories of India’s craftspeople. New Delhi: Institute of Social Sciences and Concept Pub. House.
3. Bose, C. (2019). Perspectives on Work, Home, and Identity From Artisans in Telangana: Conversations Around Craft
4. Sen, A. (2013). Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5. Wilkinson-Weber, C. M., & DeNicola, A. O. (2016). Critical craft: Technology, globalization, and capitalism.
6. Ruskin, J. (2006). Unto this last. New York: Cosimo.