The Bard Graduate Center has recently launched their Craft, Art and Design Oral History Project website. The online archive includes transcripts, photos, audio and video clips of contemporary craftspeople, artists and designers — from aritects and industrial designers to textile designers and potters.
The project responds to the growing interest in craft and design history, in which oral histories have been a key resource for a growing body of scholarship. The goals of the project are twofold. One is to document, preserve and make available the voices of contemporary makers for the purpose of research. By including creators in multiple fields, the archive provides the opportunity to consider the distinctions, continuities, and fluidity among their practices and their work. The project's second aim is to share strategies for developing primary sources on contemporary craft, art and design via the practice of oral history.Click here to browse the interviews.