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Accepted Paper:
Craftsmanship in an age of creativity: between institutionalized creativity and everyday craftsmanship
Shilla Lee
(Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures)
This paper examines how institutionalized creativity fostered from above affects the everyday creativity of local potters and demonstrate how they manage to stay immersed in their craftsmanship by realigning the 'dandori' of work, rearranging the lineal processes of craft production.
Paper long abstract:
Aging and declining population has been an ongoing challenge faced in provincial regions of Japan. With efforts to cope with the difficulties, various forms of regional revitalization policies have been implemented as grass-root and municipal initiatives. Recently, the aesthetics of creativity has emerged as a new keyword in shaping regional policies and is invested with hopes of revitalizing peripheral regions with a new vision.
This paper examines one aspect of the recent interests in representing rural Japan with progressive values, which is how institutionalized creativity fostered from above affects the everyday creativity of local residents. Focusing on a case of Tamba Sasayama’s Sōzō nōson (creative village) policy and the involvement of Tamba potters, I aim to unravel how belief in the panacea of creativity in public policy can create physical constraints in local craftsmen’s everyday craftsmanship by obstructing their immersion in the spatio-temporality of their work. I demonstrate how the local government’s promotion of a new regional value of rural creativity undermines the local potters' 'dandori' (lineal process of work), frustrating their effort to produce a good work, and how the potters manage to remain focused on their craftsmanship, nevertheless.