Whatever happens, I will never sell the mountains - A reparative analysis of the temporal, political, emotional and intellectual aspects of crafting

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate time and the values connected to different uses of time. What use is legitimate, and what is seen as a waste of time? I will argue that a general notion of time as ‘bad’ or ‘useless’ will place objects, subjects and practices in the marginal, but also establish what should be seen as important or not, which makes us value things into good and bad, effective and ineffective, worthwhile and useless. In order to discuss these issues I will use crafting and different approaches to the practice of crafting, such as temporal, emotional, political and intellectual, and economical. Drawing on theorists such as Jack/Judith Halberstam, Elizabeth Freeman, and Sara Ahmed I will investigate how time is connected to different values and norms that decide what is possible to do, when and how. By interviewing elderly women who in one way or another (some as a leisure-time activity, and others as a professional artistic practice) deal with textile and the practice of crafting, I analyse this in four different themes: ‘Bodily Practices & Tacit Knowledge’ where I am discussing how the body is emotionally and temporally involved in the crafting practice, but also how this practice can be read through the understanding of ‘tacit knowledge’ as an intellectual knowledge, which is a way to challenge the dichotomy between body and mind. Theme two is called ‘Textile in Action’ and focuses on the textile material, its agency and effects, and in the third theme ‘Time/Memory/History’ I examine how old textile artifacts serve as a link to the past that challenges chronologic structures and notions of time.!I argue that these artifact do not only make you remember thing, but can also bring you back in time and space. In the last theme called ‘Crafting Conversations’ I argue that crafting and writing can be read as two ways of practicing a female writing. Drawing from the theory of écriture féminine I will show how the crafting practice can be used, and seen as a resistance towards an economy of efficiency.