The handcrafted object is at the heart of a reflection on its present state and its becoming.
Questioning the past, immersing in the present and forecasting the future: That is the approach conducted in this project " Reasoned Mapping of the Tunisian crafts ".
Indeed, how can we think about the future of the craft in Tunisia, without questioning its definition, its knowledge and know-how, its specificity, its plurality and its mark ...?
An evolving definition takes into account the underlying factors for the sustainability of the object. The craft object is an essentially manual production, possessing symbolic dimensions and responding to a purpose. It is a language bearing a memory and provided with a grammar.
It is also the magic of the material, the implementation challenges, the technical expertise, the wealth of information and gestures transmitted and acquired often in workshops or within the family.
It must meet a number of objective criteria: cultural, economic and social.
Defining the artisanal object in Tunisia, is to question foundations that interact with one another: ethics, language, the material and the territory. It is through this prism that we are able to adopt a concrete and transversal approach:
- Understanding the territory, with its distinctive features, its mixtures, its history, its culture, its imagination and its memory.
- To comply with its ethical values : craftsmanship and sincerity.
- To analyze the formal, conceptual and gestural language of the tradition as well as of the collective imagination.
- To dialogue with the material that "the hand of the craftsman magnifies" and that the past and the present expertise reveals.
Eventually, this artisanal approach is characterised by its probity, the richness of its cultural heritage, its ability to adapt, its ingenuity and its virtuosity in upholding the tradition.
( After eight months of observation, questionings and discussions, we wished to emphasize that the progression of this thought is a collaborative work of the June 13, 2019 seminar.)
ABDERRAHMAN AYOUB — ALAIN LARDET — AZZA MAAOUI — AFIF JRAD — CELIA GAROURI MNIF — JOCELYNE IMBERT — MARTA GASPARIN— SAMIA KASSAB CHARFI — SUMIKO OÉ-GOTTINI — CHEICK DIALLO — AZZA AYACHI — MEMIA TAKTAK