Over the last year, I have immersed myself in my Swedish family’s handicraft history. In the rural community Risa, in the village of Hedared, my great grandfather Lennart Pettersson was known as ‘the last basket maker from Risa’.  The project has examined the Hedared basket’s cultural-historical reason, social influence, and contemporary significance through an auto-ethnographic study. To highlight how a traditional handicraft process can inform sustainable and socially conscious development in a contemporary design practice. Reinstate local identity and personal belonging to form inclusive and diverse approaches. 
 The research has taken place in a space between theory and practice, writing an extended dissertation in conjunction with woven studio work. A key approach has been to challenge the role of the designer as a mediator between knowledge and narrative, investigating the development of making processes that seek the core of social, environmental, and financial inclusion.




The project has examined the Hedared basket’s cultural-historical reason, social influence, and contemporary significance through an auto-ethnographic study. To highlight how a traditional handicraft process can inform sustainable and socially conscious development in a contemporary design practice. Reinstate local identity and personal belonging to form inclusive and diverse approaches. 




The research has taken place in a space between theory and practice, writing an extended dissertation in conjunction with woven studio work. A key approach has been to challenge the role of the designer as a mediator between knowledge and narrative, investigating the development of making processes that seek the core of social, environmental, and financial inclusion.