Against the grain

Johanna Seelemann is using design as a tool to carve a future for the heritage craft community of her homeland

- HUGO MACDONALD

The relationship between craft and design can be tumultuous. To many people, craft preserves the past, while design forges the future. And yet, in the past decade, we have witnessed an overwhelming resurgence in the practice of craft in the field of design. As the consequences of our globalised, homogenised and rampantly commercial behaviours become ever-more evident, we are re-evaluating the potential of craft, not just as a substitute for our wanton ways, but as a solution for our ignominious ills. The power of mind, hand and material meeting the needs of people in time and place is the original purpose of both craft and design. Surely they can work together in harmony rather than in opposition?

This is the question that Leipzig-based designer Johanna Seelemann has tasked herself with answering in her practice, which is currently focused on the Ore Mountain region, or Erzgebirge in German, of her native homeland. Travelling through this hilly borderland between east Germany and the Czech Republic, visitors will happen upon signs outside every second house pointing to carpentry workshops.

Following the decline of the mining industry in the 17th and 18th centuries, the canny inhabitants turned their attention to their other big resource, trees, with wood-turning being the dominant modus operandi. The Erzgebirge region has since become the epicentre of production for the particular decorative objects that one associates with Mitteleuropean Christmas markets: nutcrackers, fir trees, candle arches and pyramids. ‘We all grew up with them in our homes,’ says Seelemann. ‘They were a core part of our annual rituals in the run-up to Christmas.’ Today, there are around 16,500 wood-turners in the Erzgebirge region.