July 16, 2025

The dangerous binary of art and craft

“The separation between art and craft is not innocent. It is a colonial, casteist and capitalist construct designed to divide and hierarchise creative labour. This binary, like many others imported and internalised in the Indian art world, is not rooted in our lived histories. It is imposed, borrowed, and selectively applied.”

The quote above is from a widely published 2021 essay written by writer Anushka Rajendrana titled The Dangerous Binary of Art and Craft.

The distinction between “art” and “craft” appears to be quite a modern idea. It first crossed my desk while working with a group of colleagues with whom I am studying sustainability, textiles and leather in Japan. This was because, for a while, the work of the ancient Japanese northern people, the Ainu, was not displayed – many museums considered it not to be art: too much craft, too little art.

With craft hugely appreciated in Japan, this is unusual and relevant to tanners, since the Ainu were major tanners of salmon skins for their clothing and other uses. Fishskin tanning was historically, and is still, carried out by many people living in northern and Arctic regions. It is increasingly seen as important – both as a traditional skill and as a resurgent technology, with great interest today in converting food waste fishskins into leather around the world.

The art/craft binary is often thought to have been initiated by British colonial administrators in India in the 19th and 20th centuries. This was partly to elevate “fine art” (aligned with Western aesthetics) and to relegate indigenous practices to the status of “craft”, often textile work associated with manual labour, lower social status and caste.

It is a binary increasingly challenged by artists, curators and scholars who highlight the fluidity and interconnectedness of creative practices.

The leather industry lives at the intersection of art and industrial craft, with high-end luxury goods running from art, craft and artisanry – with purses to sculpture and interior design – through to the other level of mass production and deskilled labour.

There is little point in the leather industry building an artisanal narrative if it involves child labour or untreated wastes – and worse, in some ways, if artisans use such leather when promoting the excellence of their craft.

If a tannery wishes to be recognised less as an industrial processor and more as a craft rooted in place, it must reposition itself – narratively, operationally and economically – within both stakeholder capitalism and the ESG ecosystem. These two areas remain even more important for leather to succeed amid current geopolitics, and how leather fits must be explained with care in each situation.

A tannery marketing itself more as a “craft producer” while hiding poor waste management or labour conditions invites narrative contradiction. But if it honestly grapples with its limits – “we use modern methods but keep local skills alive” – then it can build authentic ESG credibility.

The tannery must be a local, skilled and sustainable actor, not an intermediate, anonymous and commodified link in a supply chain, caught between industrial-scale abattoirs and global fashion brands. It would be true to say that many tanneries already have deep local roots, highly skilled artisans and embodied knowledge passed through generations.

To be recognised as a craft, a tannery must shift from invisibility to intelligent visibility – positioning itself as place-based, values-driven and narratively rich. The tannery should be identified less as a processor of waste, and more as a transformer of local natural materials, preserving value, culture and history: not just a CO₂ emitter but a custodian of water, land and community livelihoods.

Provenance matters deeply in both craft and ESG storytelling. A tannery can gain strength by embedding its identity in its geography with comments about its water source, its energy, the locality of the hides and skins and the locational history.

Do not see these as nostalgic narratives but economic and political assets in a world of greenwashing, carbon credits and traceability.

Stakeholder capitalism rewards place-based actors who can prove that their supply chains are not fungible but fully rooted. In this context, transparency becomes a craft in itself – telling a story that holds complexity, not just marketing gloss.

If you want to reposition your tannery you should consider:

• Certification under craft or origin schemes. The Millau glove industry in France is a good example
• Partnering with craft-focused brands or artisans who value non-industrial provenance
• Engaging local communities in your storytelling – opening your doors to local apprenticeships, education, family and community tours
• Documenting your methods and materials visually and narratively with videos, photo essays and oral histories: consider bringing in resident artists and poets
• Supporting, or if appropriate making use of, grants and ESG-linked finance aimed at heritage industries or low-impact innovation.

From anonymous link to cultural actor

A tannery that embraces its craft identity, anchored in place, people and skill, does more than rebrand itself – it reshapes the narrative terrain of the entire leather supply chain. By showing that not all tanning is faceless or extractive, it pushes back against industrial anonymity and invites a more plural and ethical conversation about value.

This path may not appeal to every tannery and will be simpler for those on a vegetable tanning path, or a chrome-free one. Vegetable tanning systems can fit beautifully with ESG: low-carbon, circular, biodiverse and socially rooted. It could also gain from supporting local woodland or helping to reintroduce methodologies such as coppicing, which once supported many craft industries from charcoal to thatching, as well as producing bark for tanners.

We have often discussed the fact that, being capital-intensive, it is hard to move tanneries – and so they should work closely with their communities. This offers a blueprint to better explain this and use it to help the wider leather story. For those interested in marketing, this fits with working to find harmony among the diverse attitudes to leather seen in different groups, as explained in the Rashomon Effect.

Michael Redwood

Leather chemist, writer, and advisor on responsible leather manufacturing and material strategy. This article was originally written for ILM.