Transmission and arts and crafts: a state of mind and a challenge

June 2021 1-129 avenue Daumesnil

Keeping knowledge, know-how and heritage alive is a recurring question that drives arts and crafts professionals. The sector is taking up the challenge.

The transmission of know-how, or how to perpetuate trades with ancestral techniques

"Passion and the search for excellence are the driving forces behind our professions. But what happens to this quest if we do not pass it on to future generations? Transmission is a state of mind. Transmission is a duty. Let's pass it on together! "was Pierre Hermé's impassioned plea in his speech at the ceremony that named him Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in September 2019. Transmission is at the heart of the preoccupations of all professionals in artistic professions based on gestures, just like the crafts. It is indeed through experimentation, interdisciplinary and intercultural exchanges, and trials in interaction with the craftsmen that know-how is maintained and transmitted.
The human being himself intuitively inhabits his role as a pedagogue transmitting knowledge; traditional know-how, as well as those resulting from newly experimented practices. Skills evolve and are enriched for greater creativity. Orality and practical application are the order of the day and it is a state of mind that is called for. Each craftsman is keen to train apprentices, trainees, young people, and lovers of handicrafts.
Measures to support the transfer of skills.

There are mechanisms that help in the transmission of know-how.

The craftsmen are then in the front line. They are at the same time "passers", teachers and translators of traditions. They are supported in various ways.

Thus the title of Master of Art distinguishes craftsmen for the singularity of their know-how, their exceptional career and their involvement in the renewal of the crafts. Since 1994, 141 professionals, both creative and restorers, have been named Maîtres d'art and 101 craft trades have been honoured. It is then up to each Master of Art to pass on his or her know-how to the student with whom he or she has been selected. For three years, the workshop becomes the privileged place of transmission. The Master of Art receives an annual allowance from the Ministry of Culture and benefits from the pedagogical support of the Institut National des Métiers d'Art.

Another initiative, the City of Paris offers each year the "Prix de perfectionnement aux métiers d'art", endowed with €10,000 each, which rewards young adults, graduates or not, who have a real project of professional integration in the sectors of activity of the art professions. Each year, this City of Paris scheme enables the winners, who are selected on the basis of their applications, to spend a year in the workshop of a craftsman on a full-time basis.

Passing on and becoming part of a virtuous circle

The transmission of know-how is inherent to the activity of art craftsmen. The craftsmen themselves are taking the destiny of their respective disciplines into their own hands and are aware of the responsibilities incumbent upon them. Sharing is the condition for the preservation of knowledge, for the permanence of an exceptional French craft culture.

By sharing, the craftsmen take up the challenge of passing on and enriching the heritage of French arts and crafts. Passing on is not only a cultural issue. It also raises an economic issue. Thus, sharing is certainly one of the means of encouraging the transmission-takeover of craft businesses: a necessity in the service of the economy. And when you talk about sustainable businesses, you talk about sustainable know-how and the transmission of know-how!
And so there are 38,000 craftsmen who are the guarantors of the continuity of a sector of activity that weighs 8 billion euros in the French economy.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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