The Last Basket Makers from Risa Crafting a Plural Kinship Along Tradition

From a local tradition coming out of a small historical world to a tradition involved in a vast queer-worlding of making,The Last Basket Makers from Risa refers to a lineage of artisans producing the enigmatic Hedared basket—from Lennart, the basket’s first ‘last maker’—to Lennart’s great-grandson, Fadhel Mourali. This is his report on an open-ended process of identifying and crafting the material of kinship. Crafty, personal, and entangled with tradition, Fadhel’s research and own making share stories out of and surrounding the rural community of Risa—the former home of his great-grandfather. Here, a dialogical and productive patchwork unfolds, exploring tradition, evolution, and adaptation. This process—akin to queering—includes expected and unexpected entanglements of care and rooting. Additional texts help put this process into perspective. Textile artist Raisa Kabir, author Tanya Harrod, lecturer Helena Hansson and curator Marcia Harvey Isaksson shed light on cross-cultural dynamics, queering, kinship and more.