MINDSCAPES:
Hands & Crafts

In the fifth issue of MINDSCAPES, Hands & Crafts – on making, material and process, we turn towards practices grounded in this sustained engagement. We look at methods shaped by care, repetition and persistence — by the time spent learning a material, working with it, and responding to its possibilities and limitations. From textiles and ceramics to practices rooted in the natural world, making becomes a form of sustained engagement: physical, tactile and often deeply intimate. At a time increasingly defined by acceleration, automation and immaterial production, we ask what can be learned from processes that require us to slow down, pay attention and give up some of the control.

Across this issue of MINDSCAPES, making emerges as a way of thinking, remembering and relating. Materials are never passive: clay records touch and carries the histories of the land from which it comes; thread holds together memories of places, bodies and architectures; photography returns to the hand through acts of drawing, painting and inscription. Again and again, artists let the materials lead their creative process, suggesting that these are never mere tools but active collaborators.

The contributions gathered here approach making from multiple perspectives. In conversation with Maggie Kuzan, Mire Lee, known for her raw, organic installations, speaks about the unexpected joys of limitation and the sensuality of a machine. Grażyna Siedlecka examines photographers who return to the image as a material object, entering into dialogue with the medium through drawing, painting and manual intervention, while in the new Art Guide, Patrycja Poznańska invites artists to reflect on the hand, labour and productive failure, framing artistic practice as a continuous negotiation between intention, material and time.

Elsewhere, the issue turns towards embodied practices that use materials as carriers of memory and care. Alicja Głuszek introduces artists from Latin America, such as Lucía Pizzani, Héctor Zamora or Constanza Alarcón Tennen, who expand the field of ceramics, using clay to question inherited social structures. In Klara Bender’s essay, clay becomes a way of thinking through care, invisible labour and ecological interdependence, while Elena Wise presents the woven practice of Morta Jonynaitė, whose textiles examine hidden connections that shape the world around us. Sana Krishna turns to the delicate thread constructions of Sumakshi Singh, whose works transform architecture into a fragile vessel for memory, revealing how the slow act of stitching can preserve memory of a place even after it no longer exists.

Time itself also becomes a material throughout this issue. Jędrzej Chmielewski revisits the remarkable history of Lucim 111, where artists spent decades working alongside local residents, transforming village seasonal gatherings and everyday life into one of Europe’s most original experiments in socially engaged art. Meanwhile, Marta Wróblewska speaks with collector Fabio Frasca, whose approach to collecting is guided by long-term engagement and a willingness to follow unexpected connections rather than established paths. Together, these stories remind us that meaningful artistic practice rarely emerges instantly. Instead, it grows through patience, sustained attention and relationships that deepen over time.

In many of the works presented here, craft is not positioned in opposition to contemporary art, but as one of its most vital and expansive languages — capable of opening conversations about ecology, identity, labour, resilience and belonging. This sensitivity underlies every MINDSCAPES issue.

For us at Contemporary Lynx, it is more than just a publication. Throughout the series, we bring together artists, writers and researchers around themes that resonate deeply across contemporary art and the wider world outside it. With each issue, we explore the intersection of art, ecology, society, politics and material culture to inspire critical reflection and invite our readers into a broader conversation about the position of art in today’s world, full of uncertainty and conflict — but also care, community and hope.

As summer encourages many of us to slow our pace, sit back and relax, we hope this issue will become a companion in those quiet moments. Like the artistic practices gathered in these pages, we want to encourage patient attention, prolonged involvement and openness to discovery. We hope that MINDSCAPES Hands&Crafts – on making, material and process will encourage you to (re)discover the value of working slowly, looking closely and staying in touch — with yourself, the others and the world around you.