Exhibition and documentary culminate the CRAFTER project

The CRAFTER (Crafting Europe in the Bronze Age and Today) project, scientifically directed by the UAB, is reaching its final stage with an exhibition which can be visited until mid-December at the Museo Ciudad de Mula, Murcia, and a documentary entitled In Their Hands. Reshaping Pottery of the European Bronze Age, chosen to participate in the future archaeological film festivals in Bidasoa and Florence. The documentary will be screened at the UAB Cinema Hall on 13 November, at 1 p.m.

29/10/2019

CRAFTER was developed during these past 18 months with the objective of reactivating the pottery sector in Europe, an ancestral and sustainable crafts profession currently in crisis, by gaining inspiration from the Bronze Age in Europe.

The project was led by the Association of Friends of the Archaeological Site La Bastida (ASBA) and under the scientific coordination of the Research Group in Mediterranean Social Archaeoecology (ASOME) from the Department of Prehistory at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Also participating were the Paracin Museum, Serbia; the Hungarian Academy of Science and the Déri Museum, Hungary; the EXARC Association, the Netherlands; and the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Germany.

Since the first international meeting held in Murcia in October 2018 the project's team, formed by some thirty traditional pottery and archaeology specialists, has worked on obtaining new cultural and artistic products through the application of methods and techniques used 4000 years ago by the societies El Argar, in which the ASOME group is specialist, Únétice, Füzesabony/Otomani and Vatin, which developed in different parts of Europe.

The results of the project have been collected in four exhibitions displayed around Europe, one of which at the Museo Ciudad de Mula, Murcia, recently inaugurated and open to the public until mid-December. The exhibition includes recreations of several ceramic pieces made by cultures from the Bronze Age, exhibitions on how the pottery was created and the projection of the documentary In Their Hands. Reshaping Pottery of the European Bronze Age.

The Development of the Project Made into Documentary

The documentary of the CRAFTER project converges the intrinsic experience gained by artisans throughout the years and the knowledge acquired by researchers on the materials and techniques used by ceramists 4,000 years ago, thanks to the analysis of original pieces. The film is made up of four chapters, which reveal a double heritage: the ceramic contexts of prehistoric Europe and traditional ceramics, currently in danger of being replaced by industrial productions. Each chapter of the documentary was filmed by different directors in Serbia, Hungary, Germany and Murcia. The final version was coordinated by the ASOME group in close collaboration with Marcello Péres and Nicola Tagliabue (Heracles Archaeology).

In Their Hands. Reshaping pottery of the European Bronze Age was chosen to participate in the following editions of the Bidasoa International Archaeological Film Festival (FICAB), which will take place in November, as well as the Firenze Archeofilm Festival to be held in February 2020.

The documentary will be screened on 13 November at 1 p.m.at the UAB Cinema Hall (Bellaterra campus), in a session which will include the participation of one of the documentary's directors Marcello Péres and Carlos Velasco, President of the ASBA and researcher at ASOME.

The CRAFTER project received funding from the Europa Creativa programme of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), destined to projects related to the European Year of Cultural Heritage (2018).

Trailer of the documentary In Their Hands. Reshaping Pottery of the European Bronze Age: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id-NQVBEmqE