The Craft of Factory Labor

Ceramics can be art, craft, and industrial production. Several stages of industrial production processes resulting in a porcelain item we buy in a shop require what can easily be called "craft." Drawing on my ongoing research project in a porcelain factory in Cmielow, Poland, I focus on the skills and embodied knowledge of the workers. In this article, I ground my interpretation of factory work in Malafouris' Material Engagement Theory and the knowledge category of metis.