Museum for skills

the concept behind the work; the thought process has been considered more important than the process of making. This tendency has resulted in both a ‘deskilling’ – a situation where skills are treated as hindering or limiting the creative process – and ‘outsourcing’ – a situation where the author of a work hires somebody else to make it. Outsourcing is also a major challenge within the European and North American art industries. Factories that have been producing textiles or porcelain for centuries are outsourcing their work to parts of the world where labour is less expensive, like China or India. When the production of art industry moves elsewhere, the knowledge and skills that the factories contained (through human resources) disappears.

In the book we seek to discuss questions like As arts professionals, what skills do we need and value?- What skills do we want to preserve for future generations?- What are the skills we need to acquire for the future?- Where can we go to learn how things are made and to acquire the skills we need? - Can art academies be museums for skills – the depositories for collecting valuable knowledge and intangible know-how?