We are so excited to be launching the eighth issue of The Vessel, titled Craft in Public Space, edited by curators Ida Højgaard Thjømøe and Marianne Zamecznik.

When we started The Vessel back in 2021 the aim was to provide a place where craft professionals, artists, makers, curators, and writers could come together and investigate aspects of the craft scene that are overlooked, taken for granted, or under-communicated. So far, this approach has led us to commission issues on embodied knowledge and Indigenous making practices, tattooing, body-modification and art jewellery, regenerative fibre practices, and more — the common thread being aspects of craft that often find themselves at the margins of the “craft canon”, which often pays more attention to the main staples: studio crafts in ceramics, textiles, and glass.

Art in public space is by no means a marginal field, yet the role craft has played and continues to play in the integrated art works that make up our cityscapes, adorn governmental buildings, hospital hallways, public parks, and town squares, is often overlooked. Yet when it is not there, when the budget has been stretched too thin and the allocation for public art inevitably gets scratched, we miss it. Public art, or more aptly: public craft, is needed to make our increasingly urban environments livable.

Often, public art is perceived as purely decorative, softening grey facades or brightening up roundabouts, but the role craft in public space can play is much more profound. Ida Højgaard Thjømøe and Marianne Zamecznik’s work in this issue highlights the way craft in public space can carry deeper meaning, serving as a tool for public mourning after traumatic events, a platform for activism, a medium for ecological or regenerative practices, and a component of a reconciliation process. The contributors offer a wide-ranging exploration of these themes, demonstrating why public craft should be a given component of any urban development or renovation project.

We would like to offer our thanks to the editors Ida Højgaard Thjømøe and Marianne Zamecznik for their efforts and vision in tackling this theme, to the contributors Andrea Fjordside Pontoppidan, Christer Dynna, Drew Snyder, Elin Haugdal, Helene Duckert, and Yaniya Mikhalina for providing new insights and important reflections on craft in public space, to the artists whose works are featured in this issue and who have provided us with images, including Outi Pieski and Hilde Skancke Pedersen, and to Mesén and KORO Public Art Norway, for allowing us to use several photos from their media banks and archives.

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.

We hope you enjoy The Vessel 8 Craft in Public Space!