Ok, so the inevitable has happened – living in the jungle for the past couple of years, I have actually missed an exhibition I would liked to have gone to see – worse still, I only just found out about it!

I am bothering to write about it now as the principals it explores are not out of date, in fact, I believe that’s the whole point of the show; to discuss whether the art of craft can be revived. It has certainly been revived in me. Having spent time time here in Bali, watching locals make new things and fix old things without having to run off to a store, it has re-ignited a thought that had been simmering for years in my life in the West – that the more we use products and services that purport to make our lives easier, the less agile we become. This goes for the way we make and prepare our food, to the physical products we use, to the tools we use for social interaction. And it really hits home when you realize designers and marketers see value in developing products like this spaghetti container with built-in portion controls (below). Are there really enough people out there so useless at guesstimating the amount of pasta per serve that this needs to be ‘invented’?

Don’t get me wrong, I have been as guilty as others in the past but as any sort of creative, it is worth re-assessing your past ‘achievements’  from time to time, to get a handle on where you want to head next, both in personal development and as a society.

Exhibition link here.
Beautifully designed graphic collateral by Oscar+Ewan – link here.