Katie Schwab's Craft-Based Practice Revives Collective Making Traditions

Katie Schwab's artistic practice investigates collective manufacture through traditional craft techniques like tapestry, ceramics, embroidery, and furniture. Her work revives historical craft and design workshops as a form of applied anthropology, blending modernist patterning, pre-Columbian Aztec carving, and 1980s graphic design. Schwab emphasizes shared physical space and creative labor, as seen in her 2016 exhibition 'Together in a Room' at Collective Gallery in Edinburgh, which featured the embroidery piece 'Sampler' (2016). This work, composed of modernist stitch patterns, initially reads as abstract painting. Schwab creates objects for domestic use, such as plates for Hotel Ufer in Düsseldorf, to extend an object's life through socialization. Her approach aligns with gallery education workshops conducted for institutions like Tate and the Serpentine, fostering mutual exchange akin to educational models like the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, West Dean College in West Sussex, and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. Based in Glasgow, Schwab's work has been shown at Jerwood Space in London and Glasgow Sculpture Studios. Her practice proposes an alternative history of art where creation is collective, conversational, handmade, and educational, revitalizing design history within an art context. This was featured in the January & February 2017 issue of ArtReview in association with K11 Art Foundation.