Ways of doing: an experience in shared creation processes and transdiciplinary acting model on the design and craftsmanship relation

Abstract

In the end of the XX century, a growing group of designers turned their attention to the serious social problems which were multiplied: poverty, social exclusion, violence. The challenges of this complex society have imposed a critical reflection on the creation processes. And a specially challenging scenario impacted the established relation between designer X craftsman X artifact. Between the dilemma of dialoguing with tradition and innovation, authorship and collective creation, design was impelled to search new performing ways to act in the communities and productive groups. The Laboratory, O Imaginário (The Imaginary) experienced these challenges and, since 2001, experiments with a transdisciplinary acting model limited by the axis: design, management, communication, production, market and focusing on quality and sustainability. Built from a dialectical approach, the premises of the model cover the recognition of the actors and local doings the understanding of the cultural values and the socio-economic potentialities and local environments. The purpose of this article is to describe the shared creation process by the Laboratory O Imaginário and the craftsmanship group – Cestaria Cana-Brava (Cana-Brava Basketry), dotting the main transformations lived in its journey, since its creation in 2003, from the dimensions linked to organization, artifacts, materials and processes. The report of this experience points to the shared development of the artifacts, the collective construction of projects, the local memory valuing, the autonomy of the groups and the strengthening of the partnership network.