How did we get from producing the world’s first seamless metal globe in Kashmir and Lahore in the 16th century, to an inability to make plugs fit sockets?

Silver workers feel disheartened that clients cannot differentiate between hand-made and machine-made products. Jewellers bemoan the lack of appreciation of jarao or stone-setting, as not enough gold is visible. A craftsman needs the incentive to have his craft appreciated.

One can say it’s the result of mass production, cost effectiveness, or lack of training, but at the end it’s because it’s accepted by the buyer. Nifasat or finesse has been willingly replaced by the chalay ga (it will do) philosophy. The product may work well enough as anticipated, but psychologists note that being surrounded by ugliness leads to despondency, while beautiful objects generate a sense of calm and well-being.

Designer Ravi Sawhney says a product must not be only functional, but create an emotional connection with the user. It should have personality. You sell a story not just a product. This is something Apple has built its success upon.

Socrates believed that “all things are good and beautiful in relation to those purposes for which they are well-adapted, and bad and ugly in relation to those for which they are ill-adapted.” This came to be known as functional beauty. However, if an object does not also look good, its functionality may be questioned.

For a functional object to feel beautiful, it is not necessary for it to be embellished. It could be the pleasing, balanced weight of a hammer, the graceful curves of a suspension bridge. The Bauhaus design movement tried to remove the boundaries between art and design. As early as 1932, the New York Museum of Modern Art began its Architecture and Design collection, ranging from appliances and tableware to sports cars. There are as many avid collectors of beautiful utilitarian objects as there are of Art.

Between 1850 and 1914, Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, was seen as the ‘workshop of the world.’ The world’s first fair was held at the specially constructed Crystal Palace in 1851, bringing together both craft and industrial products from many countries.

India, the “Jewel in the Crown”, had the largest floor space with its exquisite metalwork, carved furniture and woven fabrics. The intention was not creating new business, but a statement of national pride. Britain’s pride in its manufacturing ability is evident in the exquisite designs of its pumping stations. The Crossness Pumping Station in London looks more like a cathedral than a sewage pumping system.

Since the ’50s, we have been encouraged to become a throw-away society, to make opportunities for new sales, benefitting industry but impoverishing our souls. Not the throw-away systems of the East such as banana leaf packaging, but mostly plastics that come back to haunt us with ocean tides. Products are made that cannot be loved, repaired, adapted or recycled. We become passive, dependent and disconnected from our activities. Why make something that can be bought?

Designer Tash Goswami calls mass production — with its low prices — a false economy, as it depends on manufacturing in poor countries with low wages, who then need loans and aid. Handmade items are more sustainable.

In Pakistan, the village is self-sufficient in skilled labour, and uses local raw material or agricultural waste. Nearly 14 percent of the country’s labour is engaged in the craft industry and 60 percent are self-employed — ideal conditions for reviving the economy of the hand-made, instead of undervaluing it.

Soetsu Yanag, in her book The Beauty of Everyday Things, honours zakki, or well-crafted ordinary, everyday utensils and tools “made as naturally and thoughtlessly as walking”, which she believes is an essential prerequisite to developing a sense of beauty and ensuring quality industrial projects.

As sociologist Richard Sennett reminds us, humans are enriched by skills and dignified by craftsmanship.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi
Email: durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 7th, 2021