Crafting Futures supports the future of craft around the globe. This British Council programme strengthens economic, social and cultural development through learning and access. Crafting Futures projects support practices and people, through research, collaboration and education.

In Asia, the programme focuses on generating opportunities for female artisans.

In Southeast Asia, craft practices are increasingly endangered in the face of globalisation and rapid economic development. Female artisans, a majority working the sector, are particularly vulnerable due to a lack of knowledge and skills necessary for sustaining their practices or businesses. 

Currently active in Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, the Crafting Futures aims to foster economic empowerment through the development of creative social enterprise and design-led skills for female artisans and designers with a specific focus on promoting social innovation, fair and ethical collaborations and an appreciation of cultual heritage. 

Outcomes will include collaboratively developed toolkits, learning kits, curriculum, creative interventions and research, which will be made available globally for practitioners to use, learn from and exchange. 

This film by TACA Works features footage from collaborative residencies run in 2016 between the Royal College of Art and Fai Gaem Mai (Thailand), the Department of Smallscale Industriesat the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation of Myanmar and the Vietnam Rural Industries Development and Research Institution.