Digital Handmade

These designs were all created digitally and translated into objects by traditional crafts. In 2010 I spent 8 months in India and Nepal working directly with fair trade makers.
I collaborated with the craft-makers to conceive and design products and projects that can be made and be sold to help support fair trade schooling and literacy projects. The items in the show are all made in Kathmandu with fair trade producers.

The makers of all these projects are either illiterate / disabled or in need of financial assistance. The fair trade projects operate literacy classes for the adults and provide schooling for their children without which many would not have the opportunity to attend.

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The rugs are entirely made by hand traditional Tibetan carpet making techniques. They are made from Tibetan wool. It is hand spun into yarn, hand dyed with natural and non-polluting dyes, and then hand-knotted on our looms into carpet. Together with the makers we found a way to convert designs into from pixels into carpet knots on the loom using graphs.

We plan to connect more artists with the makers and have set up Node to help facilitate this.

Made from raw cotton. It is hand-spun into yarn, dyed, hand-woven and finally sewn by the women at Mahaguthi. Ullu is the nepalese word for owl

Screen-printed on hand-made nepalese Lokta paper, it has been created by the womens shelter at Mahaguthi.

These characters have been converted from 2D designs into 3 dimensional felt toys

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Mahaguthi is the oldest social enterprise in Nepal. It was started by the legendary social reformer Tulsi Mehar in 1923. In the early 20th century Nepal had a very rigid caste and social structure, only the high caste men were educated and literate. Mehar campaigned against this inequality and for this he was exiled by the Rana government to India. His interest in reform led him to Mahatma Gandhi and they worked together for many years. His time with Gandhi gave him an opportunity to gain insight to the liberation of the underprivileged. In a system where there are no opportunities for women to bring in money for themselves they must rely on their husbands and fathers. Without the means to improve their own lives women’s situations can be very restrictive and this can be hugely problematic if there is domestic violence or abuse. Mehar and Gandhi’s vision for reform was to empower women through education and income generation projects so that they can become economically self-reliant. Gandhi wrote to the Prime Minister of Nepal to ask him to let Mehar back into the country. Once back in Kathmandu in 1923 and with a donation from Gandhi, Mehar set up the spinning and weaving development project that became Mahaguthi. It was not only the first social development project in Nepal but was actually among the first ever manufacturing units in the economically closed feudal country.

Mahaguthi currently takes on 90 new women annually (most are widows or victims of domestic abuse) to train them in literacy and employable skills and school their children as well as supporting a hospital.

Kumbeshwar are a founder member of Fair Trade Nepal. Employees are taught literacy and skills. In addition to fair wages their work supports a school of 260 children and an orphanage of nineteen.

The largest fair trade group in Nepal. They were founded in 1984 with 38 producer and have now grown to support 1,200 makers. They teach literacy and skills to their makers.

for more information you can mail me at chris at vegetablefriedrice dot com