Drawing from the wider literature and our experience in the Mingei project, we set out a series of ten steps that highlight tips, tricks, good practice and Heritage Crafts-specific challenges. The advice is structured based on the 2003 ICH definition of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage but starts with an extra preparatory step: introspection. From introspection we take you on a journey of working with Heritage Crafts Communities, through research and preservation to promotion and revitalisation. To explore each of the ten steps, we illustrate it with good practice drawn from case studies from Mingei and from our research.

1. Introspection

Before reaching out to craft communities, it is important to understand the role and position of your institution, now and in the past. Take a moment to examine the way your organisation has represented and engaged with crafts in the past up until today. If you are an organisation that looks after tangible cultural heritage related to Heritage Crafts, look at your collections. Where are crafts present in your collections and how are they described or labelled? For example, does your organisation refer to them as applied arts or folklife? Understanding the lens through which the organisation you work for has collected, studied and interpreted crafts will help you see what perspectives might be missing. Through introspection, you can better understand the relationship your organisation had with craftspeople in the past, while also anticipating how you might be viewed by Heritage Crafts communities today.

Mingei case study, Haus der Seidenkultur (Germany). The Haus der Seidenkultur is founded at the site of the last silk weaving workshop. The original tools to create point paper designs, punch cards for Jacquard looms and the looms themselves were present at the site before the museum existed. The museum was founded in response to the workshop ceasing production and in close collaboration with silk weavers that had worked at other local silk factories.

2. Identification

Do you have a clear understanding of the diversity within or among the communities related to the Heritage Crafts you are working with? Try to list all the people involved in the craft and differentiate between Heritage Crafts communities and stakeholders.

Once you have done this, do some desk research to find out who the key people might be who could introduce you to the community. Always make sure if a person you consider to be a representative of the community is indeed capable of representing it. Try to understand what this person’s motivation might be to take on this role of representative. Do they have an alternate agenda? Ask for introductions to other community members and make clear you find it important to better understand the diversity within the community. If a person is unwilling or unable to make these introductions, it is probably important to better understand why this is the case. Stay aware of potential alternative stories or diversity within the community while you conduct your work. 

In most cases, it will be impossible to meet with all the members of a Heritage Crafts community, but when deciding how to invest your time, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Do you have a clear overview of all the different Communities related to this Heritage Craft? Think about practitioners of the various stages of the craft, formal or informal students, and others who are directly affected by, though not participating in the craft. 
2. Who are the key representatives of these different communities? 
3. What are events or places where you could informally meet a wide range of community members, as an opportunity to identify more relevant partners?

External case study, Shetland Museum (Scotland). Shetland textiles are part of Shetland culture and visitors to Shetland Wool Week are known to want to engage in all aspects of the islands and their traditions. The relatively small scale of the event and the connection with the local community are part of the success of Shetland Wool Week. To make this possible, locals had to be willing to participate. The organising committee first invested in relationships with experienced knitters, who were hired to teach several classes at the event. This meant these knitters could both make money from their finished product and also by teaching others how to knit in the Shetland tradition. Younger knitters are trained to become teachers themselves, to make sure this skill does not disappear either. As well as teachers, the organisation works with farmers and crofters, asking them to give tours of their farms and talk about their work. The organising committee advises farmers on creating an event that will match the expectations of participants and provide an opportunity for farmers to explain their role in the production process.

3. Research

Most Heritage Crafts can be researched through desk-based research to a point. Historic and contemporary descriptions, videos, photographs and other physical materials related to the craft might help you get a sense of it. But because Heritage Crafts consist of tangible and intangible heritage, a lot of the research can only take place in collaboration with Heritage Craft Communities. Firstly, it is important to understand the status of the craft among these communities. Does their view of and valuing of the craft match that of the documentation you have studied? Or do you see differences that need to be further explored? 

For the Mingei project, we are exploring how to digitise both the tangible and intangible elements of Heritage crafts. To do this, the technical and heritage partners on the team have identified the many different elements that could be studied to create a good understanding of each craft. Physical items are materials, artefacts, manufacturing tools or machines, protective or traditional clothing relevant to the craft, as well as the workspace(s). Craft practices encompass actions of the practitioner(s), which means our research should not be limited to ‘things’, but should also include the bodies of the practitioners, as well as their motions. It is clear that this research cannot be done in any other way other than in collaboration with practitioners. Craft understanding involves the identification of craft processes, separating them into activities and actions, the spatial and physical expression of craft processes, their temporal organisation, as well as the identification of the involved objects and actors.

Mingei case study, Musée des Arts et Métiers (France). Once the glassblowing project in the Musée des Arts et Métiers started, museum staff decided to move forward with an ethnographic study. One of the curators joined the glass blowers in their laboratory in an attempt to replicate one of the chosen objects of the collection so as to understand connections with the old crafts techniques, differences and breakthroughs in glass-blowing both in the past and in the present. The ethnographic study involved participatory observation, taking photos, fieldwork notes, cognitive walkthroughs (taking videos and revisiting the videos with the craftspeople), interviews, and common work sessions with the technology partners who were there to digitise the crafts.

When it comes to understanding the craft fully, we also have to identify points where decisions are being made in the process, alternative techniques, and the correction of mistakes. We have to understand if the craft is changing, and if so, how. If you want to describe a craft, you would need to collaborate with Heritage Craft Communities to develop a vocabulary of terms, verbal definitions, and visual descriptions that should include the materials, tools, and products of a craft. Holistically approaching a Heritage Craft creates a lot of data. These data need to be organised in terms of craft roles and steps, the materials and the actions used. This organisation of data needs to work with the tools or machines that you will use to map the craft tasks and processes. 

Working with Heritage Craft Communities in your research phase can take many different forms. Depending on the situation, you might choose or be able to use techniques that allow for more or less active engagement. Techniques you could use include co-creation, ethnography, participant observation and interviews. 

4. Documentation

The output of the research phase is documentation. As research methods vary, so too will the type of documentation you produce. The primary output may be in the form of notes, images, audio-visual recordings, reports, etc., that describe the operational part of the process or stories relating to the socio-historical context of the craft. We propose the use of storyboards to organise the output of this process as a useful tool for (a) illustrated scripts that separate actions into simpler ones and (b) validating this transmitted information with the craft community, collecting feedback, and identifying parts of the process that may be underrepresented. Storyboards can contain temporal arrangement, visualisations, verbal description of actions and activities, and identify the involved objects and actors.

Mingei case study, The Mastic Museum of the PIOP Museum Network (Greece). During a visit to the island of Chios, we found ourselves interviewing local Mastic growers on the town square of a local village, collecting audio recordings of our conversations and taking pictures with our smartphones while a drone flew overhead, capturing footage that would allow us to create a 3D model of the entire village.

5. Preservation

To understand how a Heritage Craft can or should be protected it is important to understand the past, current and future threats facing the craft. Heritage Craft Communities are best placed to understand these threats. Is there a limit to the source materials needed for the craft? Are certain tools or instruments no longer in production? When the craft relies on selling the end product, maybe the market for this product has dried up or demand has changed. Perhaps there is less interest in maintaining the craft among younger generations. If so, why is this the case? Only when we have mapped the threats facing a craft, we can start thinking about potential ways of protecting it. What protective measures are acceptable needs to be decided together with the Heritage Craft Communities. Is it possible to start using other source materials or instruments, or is this unacceptable? To what extent can the outcomes of the Heritage Craft be monetised, or patterns and products altered? These questions have no one-size-fits-all answers but need to be explored through intensive, collaborative work with Heritage Craft Communities. 

Mingei case study, The Mastic Museum of the PIOP Museum Network (Greece). Mastic growers are actively involved in creating new and innovative products, such as skin care products and supplements using the mastic they collect. This innovation does not negatively impact their Heritage Craft, because they, as a community, are the undisputed owners of their craft and have the power to set boundaries. They can identify which elements of their tradition they want to maintain as they are, and where there is space for innovation. This shows how innovation and tradition are not opposing forces, but can exist alongside each other, as long as the Heritage Craft Community has the autonomy to set boundaries. In contrast, although the looms at the Haus der Seidenkultur could produce all kinds of fabrics, the fact that they were traditionally used to create ecclesiastical vestments and altar hangings is integral to the story of the workshop and the specific Heritage Craft that was practised there.

6. Protection

To understand how a Heritage Craft can or should be protected it is important to understand the past, current and future threats facing the craft. Heritage Craft Communities are best placed to understand these threats. Is there a limit to the source materials needed for the craft? Are certain tools or instruments no longer in production? When the craft relies on selling the end product, maybe the market for this product has dried up or demand has changed. Perhaps there is less interest in maintaining the craft among younger generations. If so, why is this the case? Only when we have mapped the threats facing a craft, we can start thinking about potential ways of protecting it. What protective measures are acceptable needs to be decided together with the Heritage Craft Communities. Is it possible to start using other source materials or instruments, or is this unacceptable? To what extent can the outcomes of the Heritage Craft be monetised, or patterns and products altered? These questions have no one-size-fits-all answers but need to be explored through intensive, collaborative work with Heritage Craft Communities.

External case study, Heritage Weaving Communities  (India). Both Europe and India face the same biggest challenge in terms of Heritage Crafts. The numbers of Heritage Craft practitioners are dwindling, and the population is aging, as young people move to cities or find employment elsewhere. The big difference between Europe and India, however, is the context within which this challenge takes place. In India, this context consists of more significant rural isolation, greater socio-economic differences and cultural differences between rural communities and city dwellers. Where in Europe often local communities can maintain a craft as a hobby, or for example develop a heritage site that can facilitate the safeguarding of a Heritage Craft, this is not an option in most rural communities in India due to poverty, a lack of infrastructure and other socio-political structures. The solution surfacing in India is also different from that in most of Europe; it is commercial. For the case study at hand, ensuring weavers receive fair and regular pay for their heritage products is the best way to safeguard this particular Heritage Craft. A good example of a company working in this model is Jaipur Rugs, a company specialising in producing heritage rugs for a global market.

7. Promotion

In theory, anyone can promote a Heritage Craft. From opening a shop, either brick and mortar or online, to sharing products on an Instagram page, promotion can take many forms. However, as the example of the Shetland Wool Week shows, involving Heritage Craft Communities can be crucial for enhancing the impact of the promotion activities, both for the Communities involved and other interested parties, such as researchers and customers.

External case study, Shetland Museum (Scotland). The unique qualities of Shetland wool and woollen products have drawn outsiders to the islands for decades. They come to do research, often with the intention to share the outcomes, be it knowledge or patterns, with a wider audience. The local community did not necessarily support these outside researchers and would be reluctant to share their information. Still today, some are very protective of their patterns and techniques. There is a sense of wanting to protect the craft, not wanting outsiders to ‘steal’ a local tradition. Yet Shetland Wool Week was set up in 2009 with the specific intention to draw outsiders to Shetland and create awareness of Shetland wool and woollen products outside of the islands. Initially, locals did not engage much with Shetland Wool Week: they considered it something for tourists. What made and continues to make Shetland Wool Week a success is a combination of two approaches. First, a good marketing strategy and secondly, a continuing commitment to engage locals who are involved in the wool industry in some way, from farmers to knitters. Once the local community started to see the event’s value, its impact started to grow locally, nationally and internationally. The Shetland Wool Week meant that the tourist season was extended into September. It enhanced international interest in Shetland’s knitting heritage, even resulting in #fairislefriday on Instagram.

8. Enhancement

If you are used to working in a more traditional heritage field and deal primarily with tangible heritage, the idea of ‘enhancing’ heritage might seem a contradictory term. But since intangible cultural heritage is a living and evolving kind of heritage, a decision can be made to enhance it, or in other words, to further improve its quality, value, or reach. Our case studies of the Chios Gum Mastic Growers Association, Shetland Wool Week and Jaipur Rugs show that stakeholders like external parties, a research lab, an organising committee or a commercial company can help enhance a Heritage Craft by introducing new uses and products, a new market, new patterns or ways of working. However, in all of these cases, the Heritage Craft Community had to be involved in the process.

External case study, Heritage Weaving Communities (India). The Jaipur Rugs company had created an international market for traditional rugs created in various Indian regions. One way to enhance the production of the rugs was to create workshops where weavers can come together to work on their looms. While this approach was successful in some places, in most cases the weavers did not want to move their work to a workshop. Traditionally, weaving rugs had always been a cottage industry, done at home alongside many other activities, related to taking care of the family, but also farming. Weaving was not the only source of income and making it so, for many weavers, did not weigh up to the flexibility they enjoyed or needed when weaving at home and combining it with other tasks. In order to honour the Heritage Craft tradition, the community’s interest came before that of the rug company. In this case, what might have seemed an enhancement from a business perspective was not an enhancement from the point of view of the Heritage Craft Community.

9. Transmission 

How are the knowledge and skills related to a Heritage Craft transmitted? How does a Heritage Craft Community train the next generation? And who is allowed to hold certain knowledge or skills? When thinking about safeguarding a Heritage Craft, either by analogue or digital means, these are crucial questions. Firstly, these questions come back to ownership and respecting community knowledge and skills. But secondly, there is usually a very good reason why a Heritage Craft is being shared or taught the way it is. The process of teaching or training is inherent to the craft itself and therefore should be taken into consideration when developing any kind of educational resource about the craft. This does not mean an understanding of the craft can only be transmitted traditionally, but it does challenge us to find a middle ground that respects the traditional learning trajectory. 

Mingei case study, Musée des Arts et Métiers (France). Each month, an artisan was invited to design, in collaboration with the public department, the content of a workshop according to his/her crafts activities (jewellery, mosaic, clockmaking, silk painting). Once the activity was decided, the craftsperson trained the museum mediator in charge of this public activity to his/her craft and taught them their skills. Then, the mediator connected with the public and transmitted to them the craft he/she learned from the craftsman/woman. The mini-workshops reached thousands of people. Due to this success, the museum decided to perpetuate the project and to create the “Fabricateurs” (Makers) as a permanent workshop space where the public is invited to do things with their hands in the museum. This is important because as a museum of the history of technology, the public needs to understand the value of making in knowledge production and what it means to “know by doing”.

10. Revitalisation

Just as Heritage Crafts change and adapt, they can also fade or lose meaning and relevance for a Heritage Craft Community. It might not mean the community is no longer interested in the craft; in fact, they might still want to preserve it as a Heritage Craft. But at the same time, they might not have the time and energy to invest in maintaining the craft as it is, or once was. Freezing a Heritage Craft is a sure way for it to lose its meaning over time. For the same reasons, it is not necessarily useful to look back in time, through books and images, for example, and try to find the moment in time when the craft was most ‘authentic’. This is the opposite of revitalising. To revitalise a Heritage Craft, the Heritage Craft Community should be involved in a conversation about what the craft once meant to them, what it means now and what it could mean in the future. Which techniques must be kept or brought back? Where could machines be used to create a faster process, while maintaining the important heritage qualities of the craft?

Mingei case study, Haus der Seidenkultur (Germany). When the Haus der Seidenkultur  opened in 2000, the workshop had not been in operation for nearly twenty years and the last weaver who had worked there had passed away sometime before that. To make the workshop operational once more, the Association of Friends had to rely on the knowledge and expertise of its volunteers. Due to their old age, many still had some experience using more traditional methods, although they had spent their working life in more modern factories. One could say that by working at the museum, they became part of the Heritage Craft Community of that particular workshop. Through action research, this Heritage Craft Community expanded its knowledge and skills, safeguarding a Heritage Craft which had been on the brink of becoming extinct.

About the Centre des Arts et Métiers

The Centre des Arts et Métiers (CNAM), Paris, France, hosts a museum of technological innovation and contains objects related to both the artistic and more industrial production of glass. Furthermore, it holds historic archives regarding the artefacts and techniques under study. All of these perspectives were harnessed in the Mingei pilot installation, which was open until the beginning of April 2022.

The pilot installation: training the public in glass blowing processes through re-enactment

The installation targeted craft presentation through an exploration of the workspace, as well as craft training through an interactive experience where users re-enact gestures of a glass master holding a tool and receiving audiovisual feedback on the accuracy of their performance. Preliminary evaluation results show high acceptance of the installation and good user interest.

Glasswork is a traditional craft that combines hand and body gestures and a thorough understanding of the material. It is a challenging craft because the material changes states from liquid to solid during production. While this complexity was not presented in the visitor-facing installation, in Mingei more broadly we pushed forward the technical means for capturing and conveying these sensory aspects of glasswork, that is to say, the requirements of dexterous aspects and tool manipulation in craft presentation and preservation. 

Learning and iterating: what we learned from user-experience evaluations

After the technical validation of the installation, we conducted a short preliminary evaluation with museum personnel. The first part of the preliminary evaluation was conducted with users from the education department of the museum who were invited to experience the installation and mimic the craftsperson actions using the bench and tools provided. What was learned led to changes to the user-interact (UI) to (a) provide real-time help to users to guide them through the training process and (b) enhance the feedback users get while using the app to better understand whether they are copying the movements right or wrongly. We fixed a glitch that meant that users sometimes thought they were doing it wrong because the feedback came too slowly. stopped with the application because they didn’t receive fast enough, and instead thought they were doing it wrong. 

A wider evaluation with visitors was conducted later. We asked a user-experience evaluator to monitor how users interacted with the installation. Minor issues with the UI were improved, including the addition of introductory screens to assist users to know when the presentation element had finished and when the training session was beginning (and when they were expected to get active). 

Responses from museum visitors

There were regular visitors to the installation, located as it was in part of the impressive church in the museum building, Saint-Martin-des-Champs. An audio component meant that the installation piqued the interest of those outside. 

Feedback collected via our post-interaction questionnaire showed that what seemed to impress visitors the most was the whole concept of being able to mimic the gestures, or as one of the visitors characteristically wrote “being in the shoes of the glassmaker” and receive feedback on the accuracy of the movement in real-time. Using a real-life workbench and glass blowpipe only added to the authenticity of the represented scene and further enhanced the whole user experience.

Find out more for yourself in the video below and explore the digital presentation of glass-blowing on the Mingei Open Platform.

As part of the Mingei project, we researched this important question by using a Teams-Based Inquiry (TBI) methodology. By looking at the available literature and collecting thoughts from our peers and partners on what works and what does not, we wanted to pull together recommendations on how we can create the most impact through communication and dissemination and, importantly, strengthen the final months of the Mingei project and its legacy.

In this post, we set out the problems we found, followed by some solutions with key tips on how and what to improve. Though we focus mostly on EU-funded culture, heritage and society-related projects, much (if not all) of what we learn can be taken on board by projects of any size and focus. In a second post, we share how you can best plan and measure the impact of your communication, dissemination and exploitation (CDE) activities – after all, this is a requirement for most European-funded projects!

Eight problems with the current state of play

I worked in 20+ projects but I wasn’t impressed by any of them in terms of communication or dissemination. Survey respondent.

1. Three or four year funding cycles are sometimes a risk for knowledge retention and knowledge sharing, limiting the project impact. 
2. Funding and capacity are not (always) available after the end of the project to promote the project outputs and project partners see the activities as finished once the planned activities stop. 
3. There is little reflection or evaluation of CDE, which means that improvements are not implemented and good practice is rarely shared.
4. Communication and dissemination are sometimes considered to be add-ons to the project. Public communication and wider dissemination were noted as some of seven key challenges in the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020 (European Commission, 2017). 
5. Responsibility for CDE might be left to the communications coordinator, who, being a communications professional, might have little insight into the research underway. 
6. On the other hand, responsibility might be left to a researcher with little to no experience of identifying and communicating to target audiences and who is unlikely to have time or the opportunity to stay up-to-date with trends and good practice in CDE, or have a network upon which they can draw. 
7. Projects often don’t identify target audiences at an early project stage. As a result, they don’t know how and when to create impact by sharing project updates and outputs with their audiences. How can you talk to your audience in the language that resonates with them if you don’t know who they are? 
8. Project outputs are often not designed for their audience. They might use internal language (‘why would any audience care about this?’) and be ‘inward-looking’. Materials may be badly designed and too complex, the language might be too ‘clinical’ or ‘corporate’ and the text too long. The media chosen might not be suitable for the audience they are trying to reach. 

Solution 1. Know your target audience: talk to and with them

All project partners should get involved in communication and dissemination activities. Each of them should identify a list of contacts from the target group of the project that they could engage from the beginning of the project. Survey respondent

From the very start, you should be leading a project that addresses a ‘real need’. When this is the case, CDE is very simple. In some cases, it might be that the need is technical innovation which is harder to pinpoint to one specific stakeholder beyond the scientific or tech sector. 

In either case, you need to think far beyond a social media plan. A comprehensive and successful CDE strategy is much more than Twitter! 

Tips for planning and strategy (before or at the beginning of the project)

• Ensure that you have wide project buy-in for your CDE strategy: get everyone involved right at the beginning to co-create the strategy and list of target stakeholders.
• Clearly set out the responsibilities and expectations regarding CDE for all partners.
• Ensure that your CDE strategy or plan is clear and easily understood.
• Brainstorm and plan moments and ways in which you can reach your target audiences during the project. 
• Invest in your branding and visual identity, including your project logo. 

Solution 2. Tell open, impactful, people-centred stories with substance 

Be down-to-earth when it comes to project description, precise with language and format, and include palpable results, not just perceived benefit to the final, end-customers. Survey respondent

Storytelling and narrative-building is key to communicating and disseminating your project outputs. This helps make what you share memorable. How you frame these stories is also important. We need to show ‘the human side of a project, organisation, brand’. Outputs should be open and reflective (sharing, for example, ‘learnings and little failures’). Don’t go ‘grandiose’ – keep your language simple and humble. 

Try to connect emotionally with your audience. You can start with telling the stories of those involved in the project and those benefiting from your work, for example. When talking about impact, ensure that you are really talking about impact. Share the data but also draw on testimonials and real-life experiences. What matters is that you share content with ‘substance’. We learned from our survey that there have been cases where projects got the visuals right but lacked the depth of content behind them. 

Tips for engaging with your stakeholders during the project

• Don’t expect good relationships with your audiences at the end of the project if they are not nurtured throughout. You need to plan regular communication throughout the project lifespan. 
• Take your project to your audiences. 
  • Plan demonstrations of your work and design these for the specific audiences. Think about how these could be delivered by ‘users who had their problems solved thanks to these results’. 
  • Plan get-togethers, online or onsite, where you can demonstrate and discuss project outputs. 
  • Consider how to safely bring people together in a room, where possible.
• Don’t only project your content to your audiences: get their perspectives and make it meaningful and a genuine conversation.
• Collect and share other relevant content, not just that related to your project. 
• Consider how you can avoid the ‘deliverables format and publish in documents that people like to read and share’.
• Encourage partners to act as ‘ambassadors’ and ensure that they remain active in communications through the project. 
• Invest in paid social media opportunities. 
• Connect with local stakeholders at a local level. 

Solution 3. Plan long-term project legacy in a practical way

There is a virtual graveyard of thousands of these websites of finished projects, not used because no one is taking care of them as project periods have ended. Survey respondent. 

All partners should be involved in discussions and planning for your project impact at the start of your project. You should already know for whom and how you’ll create impact but now you need to focus on practical ways to create impact as your project is finishing and then after the project finishes. The recommendations below cover these four stages. 

Create momentum at the close of a project

• Think personal. Send personal emails to those for whom the project is likely to have a big impact, e.g. specific contacts in cultural communities or policy-makers. They’re also more likely to take notice if the content is ‘transferable’.  
• Share your results in ways that make them scalable or adaptable. Publish your outputs using open licences (e.g. Creative Commons) so that they can be exploited and used by others. Being open alone isn’t enough – you must also think about how others will find the content (Campos and Codina, 2021). 
• Revamp your project website as the project archive. Bring the most important content to the fore and make it easy for the main outputs and ‘success stories’ to be found. 
• Think about your audience when designing your outputs, e.g. keep it short and concise for policy-makers. 
• Actively promote the project outputs via partner dissemination channels and not just through the project website and social media. 
• Consider if you’ll need an external mediator between you and policy makers – they could help ‘interpret’ your results and then make sure they are ‘appealing to the recipient’ (Rodari et al, 2012). 
• Consider how you can connect or include your final event (if one is planned) to an existing conference, where you might reach an even bigger audience and save time and money in terms of event planning. 
• Peer and sector dissemination channels can act as multipliers: harness your relationships and share your project outputs with them. 

If it is difficult to have partners commit to communication and dissemination during the project lifecycle, it is even more difficult after. Survey respondent. 

Create legacy and impact after the project finishes

• Actively target policy-makers on a longer-term basis if your recommendations include policy-change. Don’t just expect change to happen without some effort on your side.
• Make your outputs available on open repositories (e.g. Zenodo) and in particular, in those related to your field, if these exist. 
• Keep the website and social media alive. Consider sharing responsibility for managing these between partners in short chunks of time (e.g. three or six months). 
• Openly share your future project ideas or recommendations so that others can take these forward, even if you won’t be involved. 
• Consider drawing the good practice from related projects into one resource or add your results or resources into another project. One example of this is the Waag Co-Creation Navigator, which draws together content from multiple projects.

Bibliography

• Accelopment (n.d). Make an impact. Available from: https://accelopment.com/services/comm-diss-ex/ Accessed 4 April 2022.
• EIT Raw Materials, Project Communication and Dissemination Guideline (considers storytelling, asks good questions regarding dissemination, etc; print, online and events as the pre-Covid trio of dissemination activities). Available from: https://eitrawmaterials.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/EIT-RawMaterials_Project-Communication-and-Dissemination-Guideline.pdf Accessed 4 April 2022.
• European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Key findings from the Horizon 2020 interim evaluation, Publications Office, 2017, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/708544 
• European Commission (2021), Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation. Why they all matter and what is the difference. Available from: https://rea.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/Communication%2C%20Dissemination%20and%20%20Exploitation-2021.pdf Accessed 4 April 2022.
• LEITAT (2019a). What makes a good communication, dissemination and exploitation plan of a research project? Part 1 – Communication. Available from: https://projects.leitat.org/what-makes-a-good-communication-dissemination-and-exploitation-plan-of-a-research-project-part-1-2/ Accessed 4 April 2022.
• LEITAT (2019b). What makes a good communication, dissemination and exploitation plan of a research project? Part 2 – Dissemination. Available from: https://projects.leitat.org/what-makes-a-good-communication-dissemination-and-exploitation-plan-of-a-research-project-part-2-dissemination/ Accessed 4 April 2022.
• LEITAT (2019c). What makes a good communication, dissemination and exploitation plan of a research project? Part 3 – Exploitation. Available from: https://projects.leitat.org/what-makes-a-good-communication-dissemination-and-exploitation-plan-of-a-research-project-part-3-exploitation/ Accessed 4 April 2022.
• Campos, A. and Codina, L. (2021) Communication, dissemination and exploitation strategy analysis in Horizon 2020: keys to multiply the impact of european projects. Prisma Social. 2021;32(1):293-319. Accessed on 12 January 2021. Available at https://repositori.upf.edu/bitstream/handle/10230/47027/Campos_PSJ_comm.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
• Rodari, P., Bultitude, K. and Desborough, K. (2017). Science communication between researchers and policy makers. Reflections from a European project, Jcom 11(03) (2012) C07. Accessed 12 January 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22323/2.11030307
• Eureka (2021). Beste verfügbare Praktiken und Kanäle für die Kommunikation und Verbreitung in Projekten mit mehreren Akteuren. Available from: https://h2020eureka.eu/de//news/best-available-practices-and-channels-for-communication-and-dissemination-in-maps. Accessed on 5 April 2022.

Photo’s by Lotte Stekelenburg for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.

In the spring of 2013, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam hosted the exhibition Hand Made – Long Live Crafts, a concept by Mienke Simon Thomas, who works as senior curator at the museum. She wanted to show and celebrate craft in contrast to industrial mass production. Showing the production processes of the various crafts, as well as the way contemporary design is being inspired by these traditional techniques, was pivotal for the exhibition. Equally important was the intangible element of crafts and knowledge exchange. How could a contemporary art museum create an exhibition of making within the limits of an exhibition space? We spoke with Catrien Schreuder, then Head of Education and Interpretation at the museum, to find out more.

Bringing craftspeople into an exhibition space

The exhibition team did not want to create an environment that would only focus on the step-by-step production process. Craft is about skill, experience, personal preference, tradition and creativity. The exhibition should capture all these elements, as well as showcasing examples of contemporary design inspired by craft. As the exhibition concept was being developed, Catrien suggested physically integrating craft demonstrations into the exhibition. It would be the best, and maybe the only, way to do the crafts justice and meet the exhibition’s goals. 

The exhibition curator had a large network within very diverse craft communities but finding craftspeople willing to work inside the gallery space was only one of many challenges the exhibition team faced. Work stations were integrated into the exhibition design, meaning there was no separate space to work in, but the physical work was done on the exhibition floor amongst museum objects and visitors. Craftspeople were invited to work in the gallery for a period of one week each during the opening hours of the exhibition, 11am – 5pm. A weekly changing schedule was made for six work stations, which proved to be a serious logistical challenge. The location of the workstations did not change. This meant that sometimes a craftsperson was doing work that was directly related to the objects surrounding them or relevant objects that were placed further away. As well as the demonstrations, some makers also gave workshops. During a crafts fair all kinds of craftspeople could sell their wares to museum visitors.

A few ground rules were identified when selecting makers. The craft process couldn’t be ‘wet’, meaning no liquids could be used in the gallery, and it couldn’t involve using gasses or flames. The use of sharp objects was considered out of bounds as well. These restrictions were challenging for both the exhibition team and the craftspeople. Some crafts are quite noisy, which also caused issues in the gallery space. Together with the makers involved, the exhibition team tried to find solutions to allow as many participants as possible to be part of the show. Sometimes this meant ‘pretend making’, leaving out any out of bounds tools, or a show-and-tell stall. However, the exhibition team preferred as authentic a craft experience as possible. Ideally, visitors would be able to join in, but in reality, this proved very hard to facilitate for most crafts. 

A wide range of craftspeople was selected for the exhibition. This included professionals making a living with their craft, but also amateurs and even a group of elderly people living in local care homes who knitted the products of Rotterdam-based knitwear label Granny’s Finest. Some makers were scheduled for multiple weeks, because they really liked the concept and were available. 

It quickly became clear that some makers had integrated giving demonstrations or workshops into their work practice. They felt comfortable engaging audience members, explaining their work and answering questions. Others had no such experience and at times found it challenging to be working in an environment where strangers would walk up to them and ask questions or comment on their work. This in return meant that visitors too would find it harder to approach these makers. Sometimes this meant that visitors didn’t quite understand what they were looking at or felt like they couldn’t ask any questions. Engaging a lay audience with your craft requires a very different skill set than performing the craft itself. Sometimes a craftsperson was particularly popular with visitors and their presence would be shared by word-of-mouth. Because each maker was usually only present for one week, this sometimes led to disappointment when visitors would come to see a specific craftsperson who had already left. 

Creating partnerships

For most makers, their key aim was to reach a new audience, educate people about their craft and get them excited. The exhibition created a good opportunity to do this. It was important for the museum to truly integrate the working craftspeople in the exhibition, which ideally also meant involving them in the run-up to the exhibition. This was something the museum hadn’t done before and looking back two clear challenges can be identified.

First, the production time for an exhibition is generally at least 12 months. To ask people from outside the organisation to be involved from the beginning means reaching out to them and establishing connections early on. It also means claiming quite a lot of time from these people. Often, the craftspeople’s diaries did not allow the level of involvement the museum would have desired. The museum wanted to be more flexible to facilitate personal planning requests, but within the existing organisational structures this proved challenging. Those makers who had been more involved from the beginning would become a more integrated part of the exhibition than those who were later added to complete the rota. 

Secondly, the conceptual and practical integration of the workstations needed safeguarding throughout the development of the exhibition. Once conversations with makers had started it soon became clear they needed more space to perform their craft than was initially planned. Simply providing a table to work at was not enough. Protecting this space for the craftspeople, both physically and conceptually, needed constant focus. How does one communicate about their presence and the fact that new people are at work every week? How can you best inform and guide visitors in an exhibition that allows for different kinds of behaviour than one is used to when visiting an art museum? The exhibition itself was more dynamic, but visitors too were invited to be more active. They were expected to engage with others in the gallery, something that’s unusual in most art exhibitions. Staff too had to adjust to this new gallery dynamic. Museum educators in particular had to respond to the everchanging presence of craftspeople and adjust their programme accordingly. 

In the end, the presence of the craftspeople in the gallery was seen as an important element of the exhibition. Although videos could in some cases have provided a better explanation, nothing compares to the ‘magic’ of seeing somebody physically doing the work in front of you. Seeing somebody perform the same movements for hours on end in order to produce something, you see the focus and attention that are needed. These are things that cannot be conveyed via text labels or instruction videos. 

Embedding what was learned 

The experience gained during the Hand Made exhibition was put to use in following exhibitions. A good example is the exhibition Fra Bartolommeo The Divine Renaissance in 2017. The museum wanted to focus on the work process and contemporary relevance of this 16^th century artist. The museum decided to invite a local artist, Iwan Smit, to set up his studio in the exhibition and work on a modern, contemporary altar piece, inspired by conversations with visitors. The museum now had a much better idea of the requirements and space that were necessary for a workable artist’s studio. They also knew that the artist they wanted to select not only had the artistic skills they were looking for in relation to the work of Fra Bartolommeo, but also needed a specific set of social skills to engage visitors. A stronger partnership was forged with the artist and his presence in the gallery was described by Schreuder like “an event, but spread out across three months,” rather than an element of a ‘traditional’ exhibition. The work Smit created during the exhibition was acquired by the museum and added to the collection. Schreuder further indicated that in her own practice, (she has since moved to Stedelijk Museum Schiedam) the idea of an exhibition as a dynamic space or workspace in addition to a space where people can look at objects, has become a recurring theme. 

Could Hand Made have been a successful exhibition without the presence of craftspeople? Probably. But nothing compares to the thrill of seeing somebody using their mind and body to create a unique product, to witness the process and to realise: people still make things.

Based on an interview with Catrien Schreuder, Head of Exhibitions and Collections at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, former Head of Education and Interpretation at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, conducted on 7 June 2021.

Photo’s by Lotte Stekelenburg for Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.