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Sankofa: The importance of learning from the past. “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten”.
- Adrinka Symbol and Proverb. Ghana.
- Adrinka Symbol and Proverb. Ghana.
Over the years I have had the pleasure of working in many diverse corners of the world and during that time assisted many small, medium and large scale manufacturing industries in the development of new products for their respective home and export markets. As a young designer learning the creative vocabulary of the design school system in the UK, it was only when I began to live and work among diverse cultural groups in other parts of the world that I began to gain an understanding of the many alternative creative vocabularies that existed in parallel to my own.
While studying in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s I had always been drawn to the often exotic and mysterious objects which could be found in our national museums and galleries and was always intrigued by the diverse cultural landscapes that they represented.
It was as if the distant creative voices of others spoke to me in a language that I somehow understood and to such an extent that I would often find greater creative inspiration in the Museum of Mankind than I would in the contemporary art and design exhibitions that I visited.
The creative alphabet I was taught as a student and developed in the industries of Europe during my early working life became a firm foundation from which I could always extract creative solutions wherever I found myself and it was in a kind of way an international vocabulary that was able to transcend the borders and cultures of others with ease wherever my travels took me.
I, like many of my contemporaries, had never had any need to question the particular creative narrative that I had inherited. It was as much a part of my being as the air that I breathed and the language that I spoke and was part of an incredibly long creative process that had begun in the caves of Southern Africa millennia ago and led to the visual world that is now so familiar.
This international language is now all around us. We find it in the sleek lines of consumer goods designed in the creative studios of New York and London which so many around the globe now aspire to own. Even in products created by those in other parts of the globe keen to tap into the international design ethos we see the same limited creative horizons.
Little did I realize at the time that the internationalist creative language that made up such a large part of my inheritance was to have such wide ranging effects, not only on the
alternative traditional creative vocabularies of others, but also on their future ability to initiate high value products of their own.
While studying in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s I had always been drawn to the often exotic and mysterious objects which could be found in our national museums and galleries and was always intrigued by the diverse cultural landscapes that they represented.
It was as if the distant creative voices of others spoke to me in a language that I somehow understood and to such an extent that I would often find greater creative inspiration in the Museum of Mankind than I would in the contemporary art and design exhibitions that I visited.
The creative alphabet I was taught as a student and developed in the industries of Europe during my early working life became a firm foundation from which I could always extract creative solutions wherever I found myself and it was in a kind of way an international vocabulary that was able to transcend the borders and cultures of others with ease wherever my travels took me.
I, like many of my contemporaries, had never had any need to question the particular creative narrative that I had inherited. It was as much a part of my being as the air that I breathed and the language that I spoke and was part of an incredibly long creative process that had begun in the caves of Southern Africa millennia ago and led to the visual world that is now so familiar.
This international language is now all around us. We find it in the sleek lines of consumer goods designed in the creative studios of New York and London which so many around the globe now aspire to own. Even in products created by those in other parts of the globe keen to tap into the international design ethos we see the same limited creative horizons.
Little did I realize at the time that the internationalist creative language that made up such a large part of my inheritance was to have such wide ranging effects, not only on the
alternative traditional creative vocabularies of others, but also on their future ability to initiate high value products of their own.
The dominant contemporary design education system first developed in Europe and later exported to many other parts of the globe has undoubtedly produced some of the most talented and creative designers we know today. The system encourages its student body is to be flexible in their approach to creative questions and to know no boundaries when it comes to the use of creative vocabularies wherever their provenance. Like all children I learned the creative language of the people around me and this activity continued once I entered the hallowed halls of academia.
I imagine as with many others that the freedom to make the most of a creative process unfettered by geographic boundaries and ideologies kept me fully occupied throughout my training. During this period I never contemplated some of the more uncomfortable effects this evasive knot weed of design education may have had on the creative worlds of others.
This universal language, forged from the creative worlds of others around the globe has in some regards had a detrimental effect on the creative output of other nations and even those attempting to compete by using a similar
vocabulary often find themselves bound to the mast of a creative language that they neither own or control.
I only really began to question the nature of the product development strategies I had been taught when I witnessed first hand the effects that these trajectories were often having on the product development processes adopted within the developing world.
Outside influences schooled in the dominant western creative narrative have led to a situation in which much of what we see in retail outlets and galleries of both the developed and developing world follow similar visual narratives with little
regard paid to the rich cultural and cosmological worlds of meaning often hidden under merely visual embellishments.
In the early 1980’s I was fortunate to gain a position as a development advisor to a small craft pottery in East Africa and although primarily there to help develop Industrial techniques for larger scale manufacture, I found myself helping the
Government in the delivery of workshops for traditional craft people in remote rural areas.
I remember with excitement the first time I ever visited a traditional potter engaged in producing traditional wares by hand for her local community and although at first my interest lay in the basic technology of the processes involved, I soon became aware of the rich cultural and cosmological worlds that traditional crafts such as this both encapsulated and realized. Although it became clear to me over time that these cosmological realities had the potential to generate unique high value products, many of the projects I was involved in from then on appeared to prefer to follow a more western orientated visually narrative, rather than utilize the opportunities available to them.
I imagine as with many others that the freedom to make the most of a creative process unfettered by geographic boundaries and ideologies kept me fully occupied throughout my training. During this period I never contemplated some of the more uncomfortable effects this evasive knot weed of design education may have had on the creative worlds of others.
This universal language, forged from the creative worlds of others around the globe has in some regards had a detrimental effect on the creative output of other nations and even those attempting to compete by using a similar
vocabulary often find themselves bound to the mast of a creative language that they neither own or control.
I only really began to question the nature of the product development strategies I had been taught when I witnessed first hand the effects that these trajectories were often having on the product development processes adopted within the developing world.
Outside influences schooled in the dominant western creative narrative have led to a situation in which much of what we see in retail outlets and galleries of both the developed and developing world follow similar visual narratives with little
regard paid to the rich cultural and cosmological worlds of meaning often hidden under merely visual embellishments.
In the early 1980’s I was fortunate to gain a position as a development advisor to a small craft pottery in East Africa and although primarily there to help develop Industrial techniques for larger scale manufacture, I found myself helping the
Government in the delivery of workshops for traditional craft people in remote rural areas.
I remember with excitement the first time I ever visited a traditional potter engaged in producing traditional wares by hand for her local community and although at first my interest lay in the basic technology of the processes involved, I soon became aware of the rich cultural and cosmological worlds that traditional crafts such as this both encapsulated and realized. Although it became clear to me over time that these cosmological realities had the potential to generate unique high value products, many of the projects I was involved in from then on appeared to prefer to follow a more western orientated visually narrative, rather than utilize the opportunities available to them.