Wednesday, February 4, 2015, 5:30 PM | Center for Creative Photography 108
Lecture: Oax-i-fornia: The Craft of Design and the Design of Craft
This lecture will examine Oax-i-fornia as a model for visual production in cross-cultural contexts, showing how the confluence of craft, art, and design—when engaged through a collaborative process of “making” between culturally diverse individuals—can not only serve as a powerful generative force for innovation, but more importantly, can also create deep and meaningful connections not commonly associated with brief encounters where verbal communication is not easy or even possible. In fact, in Oax-i-fornia, cultural and language differences between collaborators are not obstacles to be overcome, they are catalyzers for the creative process, pushing participants to forge common ground through the act and language of “making together,” a complex physical and emotional process that not only bridges difference but awakens a kindred spirit shared by makers everywhere.
Bio: Oax-i-fornia is an interdisciplinary academic project bringing together design and art students with artisans in Oaxaca, Mexico since 2005. The project’s goal is to create a collaborative space fueled by the notion of play as a generative force to produce first, poetic, conceptually-driven objects rooted in traditional techniques but engaging a contemporary world view; and second, a second set of intimately personal visual expressions of travel, dislocation, and “the other” through pieces that are, ultimately, profound meditations on the “self.”
