Since this blog began in 2014, we have covered the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. It’s a two-week event in Washington, D.C., that brings artists and artisans from around the world to share their crafts, their songs, their food.
We’ve interviewed an Armenian calligrapher and a leather craftsman from Niger and attended a Peruvian alpaca blessing. We even sampled goat stew courtesy of a Kenyan chef with a restaurant in Washington, D.C.
Then came the pandemic. The festival was off for a couple of years but this year returned – and so did we.
From our global perspective, we were most interested in talking to crafters from the Global South – countries that may lack the resources of Western nations but that are incredibly resourceful when it comes to creating objects of beauty from the most ordinary elements. That would be: yak hair, tree bark and simple beads.
