In search of Nowhere: the international Arts and Crafts Movement

Description

The Arts and Crafts Movement is much more exciting than is commonly imagined. A far cry from the assumption that it consisted in the main of earnest worthies ‘doing clever things with fir cones’ (Blakesley 2006, p.9), the Arts and Crafts in fact represented art at its most revolutionary and radical. Motivated by the belief that ‘art’ had the potential to encompass all made things, and might transform the world into a leafy utopia populated by happy, socially-minded people dwelling in irresistible yet modest houses, the Movement’s protagonists set about reimagining and redesigning all areas of life and the objects within it. From buildings to jewellery and clothes, chairs to city planning, books to the environment, the Arts and Crafts was profoundly to affect all spheres of ‘long fin-de-siècle’ material culture in England, where the Movement originated. However, it soon captured the imagination of artists, architects, and thinkers in countries across the globe, and many diverse regional variants emerged which used Arts and Crafts principles to frame a host of civil, political, and cultural concerns. The result was a lasting international phenomenon, which was as visually eclectic and progressive as it was fraught with contradictions and problematic assumptions. This course offers a high-paced tour of several continents, making stops for rounded case studies of Arts and Crafts developments in locations including the United States, Scandinavia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, and the United Kingdom.