KeyPiece: creating a critical dialogue in contemporary craft

This paper reports on an experimental pilot project, 'KeyPiece'; a combined research seminar/workshop and public exhibition that brought together 10 leading researchers in metalwork and jewellery. Results from this event indicate possible new methodologies for critical discourse/s in the crafts and was the foundation to develop further initiatives. Starting from the ‘object’, the question of how a ‘key-piece’ can be identified and defined provided the basis for debate between the makers. The works displayed functioned as both a physical reference and a catalyst in the development of the discourse about the nature of research in the field. To enable engagement with the public, whilst still maintaining the seminar situation the exhibits provided a divide of the gallery space; one half public space, the other workshop setting; with paper covering walls and floor for participants to write and draw. After the workshop finished the whole gallery became accessible to the public providing greater insight into the exhibited objects. The event was observed and documented by a writer/curator and a multimedia designer/researcher and the record used to create an online interactive multimedia resource for distribution within and beyond the professional community. This provides an engaging, accessible and durable documentation of the event, which will be of interest to practitioners, educators, researchers and critics within the applied arts field and other creative practices. In this paper we describe both the event and its immediate outcomes. It was not set up to create pre-anticipated results; it was speculative and open-ended, generating relevant insights into creative research. We reflect on the wider implications of the event as a means of eliciting knowledge embodied in such objects and as a way of creating a critical dialogue that moves the discourse away from the sole domain of the Craft Critic and into the realm of the Practitioner.