Sweden's way to strengthen the craft sector

Sweden's way to strengthen the craft sector

I am a bit envious - in three days I got an insight into the textile activities of Marie Ekstedt Bjersing and Christin Wahlström Eriksson, have a beautiful
Linen exhibition at the Rydals visited, in the Gunnebo Castle talked to the restorer and marvelled at Helene's family's experimental flax cultivation and their many old tools. Again and again I got the strong impression that there is a completely different attitude towards (old) crafts in this country. In contrast to Austria, here at least they do not try to put additional obstacles in the way of artists and offer a lot of low-threshold help for networking.

Of course, it is never easy when you dedicate yourself to something that is actually no longer there and needs to be brought back with energy research, that takes a lot of time and is therefore rarely adequately rewarded, and that does not serve the masses but the niche. However, Sweden is going down a path that motivates people to engage with arts and crafts on many different levels.

27 varieties of flax

We visited Helena, Tommy and their son Gustav on the first day of our stay in Gothenburg. They do not only run a small organic fruit farm Strommared Organic Fruit Farmbut also experiment with many different old flax varieties. The NordGEN seed bank has 27 different old flax varieties, which are propagated by the family at two different locations and adapted to the local climate. The starting point for the trial was again the project 1 kvm lin - 1 m2 flax (More about this project) for which they now want to use local varieties instead of industrial ones. Helena has also set up a barn with various hand tools and is networking with many flax enthusiasts with her family. All this is possible because there is active help from the government for this kind of work here, namely network offices for handicrafts, which do a lot of administrative work, give advice and help with implementation. In this way, creatives can do exactly what they do best, which is to be creative.

Arts and crafts at the university

Another indication that (arts and) crafts have a completely different status in Sweden is the way they are anchored in schools and universities. Handicraft education is not an unloved appendage in compulsory schools, but a quite comprehensive subject, and it is also possible to study handicrafts at universities. Even in degree courses that are primarily concerned with machine processing, the basis, namely handicrafts, is included as a compulsory course. There is funding for research and schools like Saterglantanthat offer accredited arts and crafts training.
Craft will always be "hard bread", but with the path Sweden is taking, we have the chance to preserve old techniques and to whet the young generation's appetite for craft.