By Hugo Burge, Director of Marchmont Ventures and Wasps Artists’ Studios trustee
THE digital revolution offers us the opportunity to tap into, and drive, the rapidly evolving demands of a global marketplace.
It is hard not to get excited about this, or to see that it’s imperative to be at the forefront of progress. This is the realm where I spent much of my career. And yet, I firmly believe that we cannot allow the lure of digitisation and globalisation to eclipse other practices and values – if we do they risk becoming a Siren song.
The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century brought mechanisation and mass production but gave us the Arts and Crafts Movement as a counterbalance. Today we need something similar, a new drive to promote craftsmanship, community and nature. While we strive for digital excellence we also need to give an honoured place to those who recognise that a purely digital world would be a place of imbalance.
The Arts and Crafts Movement created an enduring legacy with its celebration of quality, workmanship, simplicity in design and the use of local materials. With eight billion people on the planet, an explosion of middle class consumption, diminishing resources and climate change we must rediscover these values. Technology cannot solve everything. We need to live sustainably, making and buying things that endure, celebrating the local and valuing the maker and the artist.
My project to restore Marchmont House in Berwickshire and make it a home for makers and creators has shown me how tough times are for the traditional crafts and trades.
Lack of investment has left them unable to adapt. And it’s hard for them to attract young apprentices because we have denigrated art and design in our schools as part of our ambition to create digital superheroes.
But it is studying these subjects that gives people the confidence to work in crafts and trades, to be proud of what they do – we cannot live without them. These subjects also make us more creative thinkers, essential in a world where technology is itself an act of craftsmanship. Likewise we have many immensely talented visual artists, jewellery makers and others who are struggling on low incomes, lacking access to decent workspace and to markets. It’s especially a problem in rural areas and places with fragile economies.
Organisations like Wasps, of which I recently became a trustee, are combatting this by providing high quality and affordable studios across the country – with a new centre soon to open in Inverness.
But change needs to come on every front. For example the business community can make a difference by investing the money they spend on art or craft for their office walls, entrance halls or meeting rooms with local artists and makers.
At a UK level we should be celebrating craftsmen and artists as heroes who make our tangible world more beautiful, inspiring and real. As a start we could join the other 193 other nations that have signed the Unesco accord on intangible cultural heritage. This would be a clear declaration that we cherish the traditions, skills and expertise that have been developed over centuries.
Our craft makers and our intangible heritage are amongst the finest in the world and we are missing an opportunity to shine a light on and nurture our differentiating assets.
We live in extraordinary times and the pace of change is accelerating. That makes the need to achieve a balance all the more urgent.
Like in the Industrial Revolution, we can be at the forefront of globalisation and digitisation. Now, as then, we must also lead the way towards a renewed flourishing of art and crafts.
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