Reclaims factory work as craft, challenging histories of making that overlook industrial production
Despite increasing interest in craft studies over the past decade, narratives have largely adhered to a formula of making inherited from the Arts and Crafts Movement, by which artisanal skills are practically and morally linked with small-batch, handmade objects, crafted from natural materials and liberated from commercial interests. According to this narrative, factories are where craft goes to die. In these great engines of mass production, driven by competition to achieve maximum efficiency, the worker is turned into a tender of machines, or replaced by them entirely, and there is no such thing as human skill or artisanal craft. This publication exposes the inadequacies and biases of this limited understanding of craft production. Through a series of essays, profiles, oral histories and specially commissioned photography, it will demonstrate that factories can be vital repositories of material intelligence and specialist skills that fully deserve a place within the history of craft. This book accompanies William Morris Gallery’s touring exhibition.
Distributed for Paul Holberton Publishing
Exhibition schedule:
William Morris Gallery, London
(March – September 2027) 
(and 2027–2028)
Ty Pawb, Wrexham
Dovecote Studios, Edinburgh
Blackwell, the Arts and Crafts House, Cumbria