Paper Short Abstract:

The island of Gotland, with its traditions of sheep farming and wool production, provides a context for exploring the interplay between materiality, sensory practices, and more than human relations in craft. This paper examines how Gotlandic wool crafters engage with wool both as a material and as an active participant in their creative processes. Through sensory and multispecies ethnography, the study analyzes how craft knowledge is shared and transformed beyond spoken or written language, emphasizing tacit and embodied interactions.

Paper Abstract:

The island of Gotland, with its traditions of sheep farming and wool production, provides a context for exploring the interplay between materiality, sensory practices, and more than human relations in craft. This paper examines how Gotlandic wool crafters engage with wool both as a material and as an active participant in their creative processes. Through sensory and multispecies ethnography, the study analyzes how craft knowledge is shared and transformed beyond spoken or written language, emphasizing tacit and embodied interactions.

Wool craft on Gotland is shaped by networks of relations between craftspeople themselves, between people and wool, and between historical practices and contemporary creativity. These connections reveal how wool acts as a bridge, linking tradition with innovation and materiality with human experience. By focusing on sensory experiences such as touch, smell, and movement, this study explores how craftspeople navigate and re-imagine the boundaries between tradition and innovation, product and process, human and non-human actors.

This paper contributes to the panel's inquiry into 'unwriting craft' by demonstrating how craft knowledge emerges from relational and sensory practices. It also touches on wider discussions of engagement, and the relational dynamics of contemporary craft practices.