Artisan Craftsmanship and Communities Under Threat

​Host: Turquoise Mountain

​​Cultural heritage traditions - from tangible buildings to intangible craft traditions - are under threat from conflict, climate change, and displacement.

​​Far from being a luxury, these traditions are often a lifeline. Not only do they support economic resilience, they also preserve identity, often symbolising and maintaining a deeper strength found within community.

​​This session will highlight different perspectives and approaches through presentation and discussion groups on artisan cultural heritage under threat around the world.

​​The presentation will highlight the role of cultural heritage for people and cultures under threat and explore Turquoise Mountain’s work with artisans in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Jordan, Palestine, and Syria - across craft training, connections to markets, and community support. Finally strength through partnerships, focusing on a new collaboration with MultakaOxford will demonstrate creative methodologies that platform the contemporary human stories behind cultural traditions.

​​Turquoise Mountain’s Percy Stubbs will provide an overview of this work over the last 20 years, and then Afghan-British designer Maryam Omar will speak about her work with artisans from Afghanistan and elsewhere on training and commissions for exhibition and retail. We will use the collaborative digital exhibition ‘StoryLands’ (Turquoise Mountain, MultakaOxford and the Alwaleed Cultural Network) to demonstrate methodologies of how we platform individual voices and contemporary experiences, ensuring self representation and spaces that demonstrate our shared humanity in an increasingly fractured world. 

​​Breakout groups will then discuss and share experiences and ideas for placing culture and heritage at the centre of development work, exploring approaches which highlight resilience, beautiful and create meaningful and sustained change.

​This venue has a capacity of 60.