Craft as Performed Knowledge

Craft knowledge extends beyond technical skill, encompassing embodied action, sensory awareness, and cultural transmission. This article challenges conventional approaches to preserving craft, such as archiving and documentation, by proposing that craft is fundamentally performative and must be conserved as such. Here, ‘performative’ does not refer to theatrical performance or performance art but to knowledge that is enacted through doing. It is important to distinguish between the performative, as the lived performance of craft knowledge, and performance art, the conservation theory of which centrally informs our discussion. Thus, we understand the performed and performative as modes of learning and continuity embedded in bodily practice. Drawing on the central outputs of the European Union’s Craft Hub Project – based on qualitative and participant observation – and on theories of performance and contemporary art conservation, we argue that craft practices are best maintained through active transmission, mentorship, and communal ‘making’. We highlight how preservation approaches developed for performance and time-based media art can inform new models for supporting craft as a living, evolving process. By framing performance as both the medium (the manner in which knowledge is expressed) and the method (how it endures), this work calls for a reorientation of cultural and institutional frameworks to ensure the continuity of craft knowledge.