Derby Museum of Making March 2023: Future Skills and the Next Generation with Heritage Crafts. Watch talk here

The Craft of Content Creation

A third year research student at the Kingston School of Art, fully funded by AHRC Techne, I'm investigating the relationship between the current craft revival and the growth of digital technology such as smartphones and social media. 

This practice-based research explores how social media has transformed contemporary craft by positioning content creation itself as a form of craft. Situated at the intersection of Modern Craft and New Media Studies, the study explores content creation as creative practice and investigates how makers use digital platforms such as Instagram, to produce, share, and commodify their work - redefining traditional concepts of skill, labour, and community.

Building on the work of Bratich and Brush (2011), who distinguished between "craft work" and "fabriculture," and Gauntlett’s (2018) framing of digital platforms as spaces of convivial creativity, this project examines the growing convergence of material and digital making. The research responds to shifts identified in The Market for Craft (Crafts Council, 2020), where younger demographics and online platforms are reshaping participation and consumption patterns.

Through an autoethnographic methodology, the project analyses content produced on the @daisybow_craft Instagram throughout the study and a companion podcast of interviews with content crafters. The research proposes a three-phase model of digital craft participation:

1. Amateur phase – crafting for joy, with incidental sharing
2. Hustle phase – strategic content creation for visibility and recognition
3. Creation phase – the merging of content and craft as integrated creative acts

The study uses analogies between digital and material crafting, tools, patterns, materials, skill, and the algorithm, to argue that navigating social platforms is a form of digital craftsmanship requiring evolving literacy and creativity. It considers how platform affordances shape what is made, who is visible, and how communities are formed.

 By engaging directly with the craft community through content and interviews, this research positions the craft content creator as a new identity within contemporary craft, expanding definitions of making and questioning who has access to visibility, legitimacy, and success in an increasingly digital cultural economy.

Heritage Crafts talk at the Museum of Making, Derby

Talk at University of Turin for the Digital Research in Humanities and Arts Conference