CRAFT AS A VERB - OUR THOUGHTS

CRAFT AS A METHDOLOGY - OUR MANIFESTO

1. WORK WITH YOUR HANDS
Like wrestling, sex, dance or poetry, craft represents a form of knowledge that cannot be commodified, impossible to transfer through a transaction, difficult to articulate in words. It is a situated knowledge that involves factors as hard to parameterise as touch, repetition, rhythm, muscle memory, breathing, emotions or chemical memory. 

For this reason, even when imitated, craft will always entail a kind of knowledge that requires time and effort, that requires friction, that cannot be bought.

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2. EMBRANCE THE QUIET
In the future, people will be prepared to pay for the experience of silence.

Gordon Hempton, an acoustic ecologist, said that silence is not the absence of something, but the presence of everything. This presence has been taken from us, along with our ability to be “fluent in silence”.

In this context, craft presents itself as a way out of that mode of living. A way out that will become increasingly popular, yet paradoxically more illogical, maladapted and contrary to the rhythms imposed by a society that places productivity and infinite growth above all else. This is where its political power resides: craft is not merely a discipline, it can also be a rhythm, a set of priorities, an ideology..

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3.  COLLABORATION REPLACES ISOLATION 
We often hear that we live in a hyperconnected society, but paradoxically, this keeps us increasingly isolated. We refuse to believe that this is the only option. ‘Think like a gardener, not an architect: design beginnings, not ends.’ Ultimately, a community is a garden. 

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4.  HONOR MATERIALS"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."

It is natural for craft to evoke nostalgia, for the perceived uselessness or the antiquity of its processes, and the memory of an extinct economy, to stir such feelings. But we must reverse this narrative and recognise that today true transgression lies in understanding progress differently, that innovation may in fact reside in recovering the knowledge that is being lost and boldly combining it with new forms of knowledge so that both may look towards the future.

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5.  EMBRACE TOOLS OLD AND NEW


Tools determine how we behave. We point, measure, weld, print, fit, render, rivet, sew, saw, transfer... We are passionate about understanding how our tools are shaping us, and how to cope with that shaping in this era of hyper-change

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5.  EMBRACE TOOLS OLD AND NEW
6.  THIS IS CRAFT WITHOUT NOSTALGIA
We believe that craftsmanship is neither a refuge nor a memory; it is an active position in the present. It is a necessary attitude that faces its time head-on and decides to intervene. It does not repeat gestures out of habit or protect itself in tradition. It uses material to think, process to question, and form to propose.

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7.  WORKSPACES ARE BEAUTIFUL 



There are thousands of ways to optimise efficiency and speed in craft work. A simple internet search can give us an idea: timers, zoning systems, organisational templates, and so on.

However, this conception of a craftsperson’s workspace leaves out many important questions. The first and most significant is that a craftsperson’s workshop is a reflection of their mind, their spirit, their rhythm, where they learned their trade, how they make decisions, and how they organise all the chaos inherent in any creative and human process.

Workspaces are complex, just like the craftspeople who shape them. We often say that by carefully observing and deeply understanding a workshop, one learns more about it than from hours spent speaking with its owner.

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8.  FINALLY, PROPOSE IS AT THE CENTRE
Craftsmanship can hardly compete in terms of speed, scalability or volume. Perhaps it cannot and should not. We are not saying that it lacks the capacity to produce or even organise itself on a certain scale, but rather that its power lies in other elements: purpose, meaning, questioning, uniqueness, authorship, judgement, exploration, ethical intention, experience... 
And this is precisely what Fuerza Mínima is all about. 

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9.  DESTROY, DEMOLISH AND REBUILD
If there is one thing we have learned from talking to all the artisans we have had the privilege of interviewing, it is undoubtedly the importance of throwing yourself into creating without fear, without inhibitions, without hesitation to reinterpret, experiment and innovate. Try things out! Don't be afraid to create with your hands. 
 

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10.  OPEN SOURCE, NO KIDDING 
Quite simply, we want to make available the kind of knowledge we wish we had access to ourselves.
We invest a great deal of time in making our processes transparent and in opening up the references, reflections and lessons that shape our thinking. Our own, and those generously shared by the people who inspire us.

Knowledge becomes more valuable when it circulates. We believe ideas should travel from hand to hand and evolve through others.

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Info                                   Store (SOON)      Research (SOON)

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Fuerza Mínima is an open database dedicated to the research of new approaches to craft today. 


We are Toni and Seva. We believe that craftsmanship goes beyond mastering a technique. It is a political and transgressive attitude in the face of an increasingly individualised, optimised and accelerated world. Above all, it is a way of being and doing: working with our hands brings us closer to being part of a community, connecting with other generations, not prioritising scalability above all else, slowing down. And maybe imagine to make a living with it. 

We believe in this, in the opportunity to connect with new people and share all our learning with anyone who can benefit from it.


Press kit

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RADIO EPISODES

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Artishansip is changing, and our propouse is to map these transformations, actors, discourses and practices. We do it through open conversations that takes shape as a podcast. 

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Second Season

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#13: LA CUARTA PIEL


00:58:11

What does it mean to work with residue as a living material condition?
How can landscape, body and politics be activated through collective practice?
Where does the boundary lie between participation, perception and critical action?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX

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#12: LUCAS MUÑOZ MUÑOZ


01:12:10

What is sustainability?
How can rubble be used to create something new?
What role does craftsmanship play in the future?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX

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#11: MIREIA RECHE  

00:54:04

What does it mean to work with error?
How can slowness shape the way we produce?
What does it take to sustain an independent practice today?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX

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#10: ESTUDIO SAVAGE  

01:00:01

How can craftsmanship connect education, culture, and industry?What role does it play as a driver of innovation today?How can new generations be introduced to making?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX

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#09: PABLO BOLUMAR 

01:17:22

What can emerge from observing a territory closely?
How can materials, suppliers, and context shape a way of making?
What does it mean to define success on your own terms?


EPISODE’S TOOLBOX

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#08: ELENA ROCABERT 


01:03:42

What does it mean to work with what is already there?
How can materials be understood beyond their current state?
What happens when we think in terms of cycles instead of objects?


EPISODE’S TOOLBOX

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First Season

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#07: SEASON RECAP


01:08:59

This episode marks the end of the first season of Fuerza Mínima. A pause to look back, reflect, and revisit the conversations that have shaped the project so far.

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX

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#06: FERRAN ADRIÀ

01:08:05

How do you create something that does not yet exist?
Can creativity be systematized without losing its essence?
What happens when process becomes more important than the final result?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX

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#05: FONDO SUPPER CLUB


01:34:00

How can an object return as something familiar yet transformed?
What does it take to translate an idea into a physical piece?
How are intuition and structure negotiated in the process of making?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX       

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#04: ESTHER MERINERO


01:23:20

What does it mean to be an artisan today?
How can craftsmanship and industry coexist without losing their essence?
What structures allow a creative practice to remain independent over time?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX        

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#03: SINA SOHRAB


01:04:41

What is sustainability?
How can rubble be used to create something new?
What role does craftsmanship play in the future?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX           

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#02: JOAN VELLVE


01:04:41

What makes design become an elitist system?
Why does design operate as a tool for transformation in some contexts and as a secondary practice in others?
What happens when there is no space to create, and creation becomes a question of access?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX
             

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#01: GUILLERMO TRAPIELLO 


01:06:59

What does it mean to work with the hands in contemporary design practice?
How can craft become a form of collaboration with the environment and not only a technique?
Where do new materials, traditions and experimental processes begin to overlap?

EPISODE’S TOOLBOX             

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#00: INTRO FM 


00:01:03


EPISODE’S LINK

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fuerzaminimapodcast@gmail.com

1. To craft is a source of self-esteem.
In a culture where screens replace craft, people lose the outlet for self worth established through unambiguous demostrations of skill. 

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'Crafting for me is a tiny little action against mass consumption and mass production. If you feel like you can make your own things, you can realize your own creativity and power to make, rather than buy. It can also make you appreciate the work that does go into handcrafted things and feel more connected to objects around you.' (Emma Smith)

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To craft is to practise before having something to say.
In a culture obsessed with outcomes, craft reminds us that making does not begin with certainty. Sometimes the hands arrive before the idea does.

"Does a gardener only water their flowers after they've bloomed? Does a farmer only tend to their crops once they've shown fruit?"

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To craft is to build a relationship with time.It does not simply occupy time, it produces a different kind of time.

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To craft is to understand that things are difficult.
For most of human history, making things demanded collaboration, patience and skill. We have become surrounded by objects while forgetting what it takes to bring them into existence.

We were aware that it is hard to make a jacket, a pot, an earing. 

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To craft is to think with your hands.Not every form of intelligence happens in language. Some thoughts can only appear through movement, touch and repetition.
Some are really difficult to express in words. 

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To craft is to remain close to reality.To craft is something counterintuitive today. It moves in the opposite direction to a system that rewards efficiency, scalability and constant acceleration.

For many, it is read as a residue, a leftover.
 It insists on slowness, on attention, on friction. On a way of making that cannot be fully translated into procedure or abstraction. 

This is why craft today is deeply humanist. Not because it belongs to the past, but because it insists on staying with the human condition as it is: imperfect, material, and in direct contact with consequence. 

Fuerza Mínima Research