Historic Bowls

My research explored change and continuity in woodturning technologies over the last 150 years. A practice-led exploration into the varying designs and materialities of lathes and their associated hand tools sees technological and social developments emerging simultaneously through body technique and product design. From this embodied position, technology and culture are experienced concurrently.

In the course of praxis craftspeople attach meanings and histories to the tools of the trade. These then accrue biographies and act as catalysts for the transmission of craft culture as it unfolds and changes over time. A comparative review of iconic woodturning lathes, chisels and gouges from multiple museum contexts was juxtaposed with an archaeological review of my own tool box. Through the chaîne opératoire, this approach breathed life into the biographies of museum objects and blurred the boundaries between tangible and intangible cultural heritage.