MADE IN: Crafts and Design Narratives

MADE IN is a EU platform for research, design and heritage. The platform brings together artisans, designers, researchers, curators and theorists in search of relevant issues on contemporary production, with the aim of researching, mapping and archiving local crafts, conducting innovative co-creation and participatory programs with artisans and designers, and promoting their joint projects. MADE IN arose from an awareness of the key role that crafts, so far not represented in one place, play in creating and maintaining local identities and the sustainability of local communities.

MADE IN: Crafts and Design Narratives addresses global overproduction and unethical distribution, including the loss of knowledge of local crafts in communities and cultural identities. We also address issues in production, such as production origins, environmental sustainability, and its relationship to design.

We are a research, design, and heritage platform for new collaborative practices and exchange between crafts artisans and designers. We also work with communities to archive and showcase local crafts. We promote co-created ideas and projects through exhibitions, public discourses, and publishing.

The platform engages crafts artisans and designers to jointly create and implement the project’s products, concepts, and strategies. Researchers, coordinators, and curators from partnering institutions provide expertise, support, lead discussions, and produce archives and exhibitions.

Our platform is a digital repository of projects and information on local crafts and design. We are also a network for professionals and promote alternative models of production based on co-creative processes. We encourage critical discourses on the preservation of local and European heritage.

The project is currently present in 4 European countries: Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and Serbia. It can be implemented in other contexts with adaptations to expand the platform’s network. We are also expanding and developing our crafts archive, projects, exhibitions, and community outreach initiatives.