How to Co-Create with Artisans, with Karishma Singh-Kelsey

The global handcraft market is worth more than a trillion dollars. Yet, particularly in rural areas, many highly skilled craftspeople live with inconsistent incomes, no social safety nets and ongoing threats to their cultural heritage.

There is rising interest their wares, for some of the same reasons that secondhand is booming - uniqueness, story, the human touch in an increasingly disconnected, AI-obsessed world.

But do we really see the artisans behind the products we buy? What is the true value of skilled artisanship? Where do different worldviews, timelines, rhythms and Indigenous wisdoms come into it? And how can western designers work with diverse communities in authentically sustainable and ethical ways? Co-creation is a buzz word, but what does it really mean?

 "To co-create, we might need to unlearn top-down western ways of thinking," says my guest this week, Karishma Singh Kelsey, who's leading our new course on Wardrobe Crisis Academy.

"Working with artisans and micro-enterprises often requires a paradigm shift away from entrenched (and usually unexamined!) 'I am better than you' ways of thinking. It recognises that when different worldviews come together on an equal footing, we can create even more interesting outcomes."

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