Craft and the Hyperobject
Craft and the Hyperobject documents a Center for Art Research (CFAR) Catalytic Conversation held on January 29th, 2020 with Anthea Black, Garth Clark, Sonja Dahl, Jovencio de la Paz, Brian Gillis, Bean Gilsdorf, Nicki Green, Namita Gupta Wiggers, Anya Kivarkis, Bukola Koiki, Stacy Jo Scott, Shannon Stratton, and Lori Talcott to explore notions of craft through the structure of a hyperobject. CFAR’s Catalytic Conversations serve the creative practices of individuals and groups by giving them an opportunity to engage a small body of thinkers in ways that contribute to a project or line of thinking that is in development. These conversations are recorded, transcribed, and archived as reference materials for those involved. This particular Catalytic Conversation was the first that CFAR conducted with intent to publish.
Craft and the Hyperobject is the latest of a series of engagements that University of Oregon’s community of craft-related artists, Sonja Dahl, Jovencio de la Paz, Brian Gillis, Anya Kivarkis, and Stacy Jo Scott, have facilitated using practice-based research, teaching, and speculative discourse to explore craft. After coming together as colleagues at the University of Oregon, we first organized a Summer Craft Forum in 2016 where artists working in ceramics, fibers, metals, and printmaking were invited to the UO campus to work in the studios together, share meals, and hold public conversations related to participants’ work and thinking. After this forum we continued to work together through studio collaborations and exhibitions, conference panels, lectures, and workshops, by organizing public events, teaching at the UO and institutions around the United States, working together on institutional and governmental initiatives, and collaborating with other UO colleagues to found the Center for Art Research.
The Craft and the Hyperobject conversation was convened to consider craft in proximity to the hyperobject, a term coined by Timothy Morton in his 2013 book Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World. In this text, Morton explores the idea of a hyperobject in five parts, or that which is viscous, undulates temporally, is nonlocal, phasing, and interobjective, to explain objects so massively distributed in time and space that they transcend spatiotemporal specificityor legible, tangible, or discretely definable knowing. We chose the framework of the hyperobject to initiate a thought experiment that might allow for the consideration of craft in ways that aren’t preoccupied by previous craft discourse, disproportionately focused on valuation, or positioned as supplemental to other fields, but rather something that is of and in relation to craft on terms that are meaningful to related people and histories.
For this work, we assembled a group of people who represent a range of practices, stakes in the field, and thinking related to craft, and also have the capacity to think speculatively in a cooperative and rigorous think-tank environment. Witheach correspondence in advance of the Catalytic Conversation, the group received information about project goals, a primer outlining the structure of a hyperobject, and a schedule of events for the day we assembled. With our last communication we also sent the introduction to Morton’s text as a primer to seed the discussion.
This conversation was not intended as a place to perform knowledge, valorize ideas, or establish a new canon, but rather a space to honor and draw from participants’ diverse experiences, knowledge, and perspectives in order to explore craft thinking in fresh and relevant ways. We assumed this short conversation would be inconclusive, and ultimately function more as a catalyst for future inquiry than a series of resolved thoughts. So, in addition to the conversation transcript, we have also included a bibliography of materials that were referenced in the conversation, inform participants’ thinking more generally, or are such that seem important to be thinking about at this moment.
By making this content available through the CFAR website and other forms of digital distribution, and by printing a limited-edition book to distribute to 400 individuals, educational programs, and libraries, we hope that this document serves as a catalytic object to seed further discourse.
ISBN 978-1-7362447-0-8
© 2021 University of Oregon, Center for Art Research
Edited by Brian Gillis
Design and Layout by Aaron Bjork
Typography by Bureu Brut, Joshua Darden, and Tre Seals
Copyedited by Bean Gilsdorf
Media Edited by Eden V. Evans
Advised by Wendy Heldmann, Sonja Dahl, Jovencio de la Paz, Anya Kivarkis, and Stacy Jo Scott
Published by the Center for Art Research
5232 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
This publication is made possible by the Robert James Ceramics Foundation, the Carol and Terry Reinhold Family Foundation, and the University of Oregon Jewelry and Metalsmithing Foundation.
The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This publication is available in accessible formats upon request.