Discover the dramatic changes in contemporary craft in recent years.

Contemporary craft-based artists are finding new ways to fully explore their disciplines. Artists engage a broadened range of materials, conceptual practices, ways of making, and modes of display than those that have been historically associated with craft objects.

“Crafted” explores this moment of “flux” in the field, focusing on contemporary craft-based artists who bridge cutting-edge concepts and traditional skills as they embrace and explore the increasingly blurred boundaries between art, craft, and design. Featuring a selection of works from across the landscape of contemporary craft, the exhibition includes more than 30 emerging and established international artists. Looking to a broad range of materials and practices, the exhibition explores the connections between craft and performance; the opportunities provided by new technologies and materials; and the power of rethinking craft’s interactions with architecture and space.

This exhibition is the first of its kind within an encyclopedic museum to explore the broad possibilities of contemporary artistic engagement with craft. By examining these interactions in proximity to historical examples in the MFA’s collection, "Crafted" demonstrates the vitality, viability, and variety inherent in choosing craft as a foundation for contemporary artistic practice.

Above: Susie Ganch, Drag , 2012–13. Mixed media, steel. Photo courtesy Sienna Patti. Courtesy of the artist and Sienna Patti Contemporary.