Craft and Environment
Projects
Theorizing Global Craft
Across all of my work, I place an emphasis on two major themes: craft and global process. I understand craft as a theoretical model, a methodological disposition, and a subject of study all at once. The coming together of human skill, embodied practices, and materials produce the world around us and our ways of knowing about it. I have written and presented on craft in its traditional sense, ethnography as craft, and craft as a global process entangled in production, consumption, and waste. I focus on telling stories about craft through craft through my ethnographic work and close work with material collections.
Finding the Singing Spruce
Through original ethnographic research conducted in the mountain forest communities of Central Appalachia and Carpathian Romania, I have explored the meaning of making musical instruments, global circulations of craft materials, and the importance of environment to craft. In ongoing research started in 2013, I have worked as an apprentice instrument makers, written articles and a monograph, and produced an exhibition in collaboration with musical instrument markers. Emphasizing the connection between craft economies, forest ecologies, and collaborative work among human and non-human actors, this project brings together music, folklore, anthropology, forestry, and Appalachian Studies into a productive conversation. Read a story map about this research here.
Art from the Korean War
With fellow researchers from the Asian Cultural History Program (Smithsonian Institution), I worked with Korean art collector, Dr. Chester Chang, to document his collection and tell the story of Korean artists and craft practitioners of the Korean War Era. Highlighting the stories of Lee Jung-Seop (1916-1956), Kim Kwan Ho (1890-1959), Park Sookeun (1914-1965), and Byeon Kwan-sik (1899-1976), our research delved into their lives as artists, their survival working at a kiln in Busan during the war, and their impact on the creation of markets for Korean art in the post-war era. Research with this collection showed the critical connections between Korean traditional and modern practices, craft economies, and globalization.