Many art forms in the under-developed world are under con­stant threat of van­ish­ing due to lack of access to mate­ri­als or a mar­ket to sell from. A story in The Wash­ing­ton Times high­lights a busi­ness that helps to bring these crafts to the mar­ket­place. Artec­nica trav­els to the under-developed world to find arti­sans whose crafts are wor­thy of an inter­na­tional market.

For our snip­pet, Designer Tucker Rob­bins from Artec­nica men­tions a char­ity that they coop­er­ate with. Reporter Kim cook tells us about Aid for Artisans.

He cites the group Aid to Arti­sans (ATA) as hav­ing done good work in Hon­duras, Guatemala and Peru. The non­profit orga­ni­za­tion, which also has had projects in Iraq and else­where, tries to cre­ate eco­nomic oppor­tu­nity for arti­sans in regions where craft tra­di­tions are at risk, often where civil strife has taken a toll, par­tic­u­larly on women.

Many of its prod­ucts are sold online, includ­ing beau­ti­fully worked iron bowls and screens forged by artists in Haiti’s iron­craft cen­ter, Croix de Bou­quet. ATA has worked with them on their tech­niques, and helped them devise bet­ter ways to pur­chase raw mate­ri­als and mar­ket their wares.

ATA’s Colleen Pendle­ton says red tape can make it dif­fi­cult in some places to get ATA projects off the ground, but so far no coun­try has rebuffed them.

She points to Artec­nica as one of her group’s most suc­cess­ful part­ner­ships: “In 2002, Artec­nica founded Design With Con­science, a pro­gram that pro­motes self-sustaining com­mu­ni­ties of skilled arti­sans in under­de­vel­oped coun­tries. They’ve invited tal­ented, inter­na­tion­ally known design­ers to team with them and with arti­sans in need around the world.”

For­mer Colom­bian jour­nal­ist Mar­cella Echevar­ria has started the design firm SURev­o­lu­tion, which brings Indian and Latin Amer­i­can hand­crafts such as tex­tiles, bas­kets, ceram­ics and an array of fash­ion pieces to the lux­ury mar­ket­place. Earthy black La Chamba pot­tery is made from the mica-rich clay of the Colom­bian hills. Vel­vety smooth bowls are turned out of rose­wood stumps from care­fully man­aged forests in Bolivia, by work­shops whose earn­ings help raise their com­mu­nity twice above the country’s poverty line.

“When you think about it, embed­ded in tex­tiles, met­als and ceram­ics you find the DNA of us as world cit­i­zens. We deserve to know about the tech­niques, mate­ri­als and crafts­man­ship, because they’re the car­ri­ers of our iden­tity,” Miss Echevar­ria says.

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