Crafting Futures Mexico will bring together an emerging British and Mexican designer with local design graduates to work with a select group of Oaxacan artisans. These teams will be based at Oax-i-fornia's Ex-Hacienda Guadalupe in the heart of Oaxaca.

As a creative exchange, the programme proposes a unique strategy. Rather than set up a designer/producer relationship (in which the designers design, and the artisans make the finished pieces), the project cultivates a shared space of interaction, exploration and creative making, in which goals are established collaboratively and skills are exchanged. The intention is not to replace the traditional visual language of local craft, but to develop and enrich it.

Crafting Futures Mexico begins with what already exists, using the body of work of a particular artisan as a starting point for creative dialogue and collaboration with a designer. By re-thinking traditional forms, materials and techniques through experiment and play, the teams will create a new body of work that can be developed and sold by the artisans, with designers credited for their collaboration.