Interested in the future of craft around the globe? Collaborate, learn and share. 

The British Council invited collaborative proposals from the UK and internationally based organisations, collectives and creative practitioners with a specific focus on virtual and other new ways of working in craft.

In response to increasing restrictions on global travel due to Covid-19, and rising concerns about the sustainability of face-to-face collaborations, the Crafting Futures Digital Collaboration Grants with support from Crafts Council UK replaced the Crafting Futures Grant Scheme (2018 – 2020) as a new way to foster important international connections and devise alternative ways of working virtually.

Find out more about our Crafting Futures programme here.

The projects selected for the 21/22 Grants are: 

Nick Gant (University of Brighton) and Prananda Luffiansyah (Institut Teknologi Bandung), collaboration between UK and Indonesia: Making Nature project: using open access digital technology to shine a light on and digitally document craft practices in Indonesia and the UK that consciously benefit nature and more symbiotic relationships with the natural environment.

Bine Roth (Peut Porter), Ruhul Abdin (Paraa) and the Crafts Council of Bangladesh, collaboration between UK and Bangladesh: Online archiving of traditional textile crafts combined with a design challenge using the archive and sharing and policy dialogue event.  

Angelika Strohmayer (Northumbria University) and Özge Subaşı (koç Universitesi Kampusu), collaboration between UK and Turkey: Quilted protection: addressing issues of women's safety through digitally mediated hybrid quilting with local craft experts and women's safety advocates in Turkey and the UK, creating digitally augmented interactive sister quilts. 

Teal Triggs (RCA), Celia Matsunaga (Universidade de Brasília) and Cacique Domingos Munduruku (Chief of Indigenous village Bragança, Marituba), collaboration between UK and Brazil: Building a Library for the Future: Munduruku Craft Practices and Indigenous Knowledge

Aniela Fidler Wieruszewska and Megha Chauhan, collaboration between UK and India: collaborative project between 12 student-contributors from London and Delhi and 6 Indian artisans from Gujarat to explore what it means to 'make a mark' using digital media and analogue craft.