It’s with great pleasure that we publish the third issue of The Vessel titled Embodied Knowledge. The issue is part of a long-standing collaboration between Norwegian Crafts and the Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland gallery Objectspace. In 2020, Norwegian Crafts invited Zoe Black, then-curator and now deputy director of Objectspace, to be our Curator in Residence. With this residency Norwegian Crafts aims to further the dialogue between the contemporary craft fields in Aotearoa New Zealand, Sápmi,¹ and Norway. Objectspace and Norwegian Crafts continue to address the ways in which their institutions can honour Indigenous making practices, and in 2020 Zoe led the development of a digital seminar series titled Stories of Making – Over the Mountain, Across the Ocean, featuring curators, duojárat (practitioners of Sámi duodji), and artists from Sápmi and Aotearoa. This issue of The Vessel is a continuation of that important work.

The launch of this issue coincides with the opening of La Biennale di Venezia 2022 and the historic Sámi Pavilion and Aotearoa New Zealand Pavilion.² In this edition of the biennale, we see a celebration of Indigenous making practices across many pavilions. The three editors of this issue of The Vessel have a similar focus, looking at craft practices and artists from Sápmi and across Te Moana nui a Kiwa, the Pacific Ocean. More specifically they highlight making as a joyful practice, and craft as a powerful source of healing and happiness.

We wish to thank the editors, the artists, writers, and photographers that have contributed to this issue. The Vessel is published by Norwegian Crafts and would not have been possible without the support of our funders: the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition, we wish to thank Creative New Zealand for the generous support they have provided for the production of this issue.

by Hege Henriksen, director of Norwegian Crafts and Kim Paton, director of Obectspace