ResearchAurieaWorldwide

WhereTheHandsAre

Where the hands are: the workshops and makers I keep saving on Instagram, and the ones I found looking further, placed where they work. Round dots are my saves; diamonds are research leads. Drag the globe to turn it.

Finding the hands

Research for the Serpentine Future Art Ecosystems fellowship week, November 2026.

Five makers in four regions could realize a figure I send as a file in their own local tradition. Three already work from digital sources or with outside institutions: Phil Omodamwen's bronze casting in Benin City, the Takaoka foundries in Japan, and Dr. Dina Rihan's digital-to-ceramic teaching in Alexandria. Mexico adds cartonería and cornstalk-paste devotional figures, where a printed form becomes the core and the local skin carries the flavour of the place.

The artwork is transmitted as a file, fabricated by local hands, and exhibited where it is made. Machines can carry out the certain parts of the work, but the moments of risk and judgment belong to the craftsperson.

What I'm drawn to

My Instagram "fabrication" collection holds 33 posts from 29 accounts. They cluster in Italy, Egypt, Iran and South Asia, with single points in Lagos, New York, Columbus and China. Latin America, most of Africa, East and Southeast Asia and Oceania were empty until this research.

Three patterns run through the saves:

• One gesture repeated patiently: pouring, laying tesserae, engraving, dyeing.
• Mould and relief logic: a negative made and filled, or a surface carved into. This maps directly onto files becoming objects.
• Old techniques framed as contemporary: Rock Dhokra, Art D'Égypte's "Crafts ReImagined", House of Fairlady's joke about AI and bead sizes.

What I'm looking for next is not more bronze but something sculptural in the same spirit, carrying the flavour of the place where it's made.

Mexico

Four sculptural traditions could take a figure sent as a file and finish it in a strongly local idiom. The best fits are cartonería, which builds a paper skin over a printed form, and pasta de caña, which makes devotional figures.

• Cartonería (papier-mâché). Paper and paste over a wire or reed armature, or over a mould. A printed form could travel, and the skin, paint and finish would stay local. It comes from the world of Day of the Dead and Judas figures.
• Pasta de caña (Pátzcuaro, Michoacán). A paste of cornstalk pith, nopal and orchid bulb, used since the colonial period for very light Christ figures. The most directly devotional match.
• Santa Clara del Cobre hammered copper. Raised by hand from a single block and chased from inside, with more than 250 registered workshops. A figure would become a relief or a set of raised shells.
• Oaxaca copal alebrijes. Carved and painted wood, interpreted from reference views or a printed maquette.

Spanish is essential, and WhatsApp is the usual channel. Several contacts come from Feria Maestros del Arte profiles that may be years old.

West Africa

Benin City is the strongest lead in the whole study. Its lost-wax guild can cast directly from a wax printed from my file, and Phil Omodamwen already works with UK museums. Senegal has a family bronze foundry in Dakar. Ghana adds brass casting, glass beads and royal woodcarving.

The Benin Bronzes sit at the centre of restitution politics. Brass prices rose more than tenfold in four years, so pay for materials up front and credit casters by name.

Egypt

In Alexandria the way in is through institutions: no individual workshops showed up online. Cairo has the craft depth, especially carved and turned wood, pottery and engraved copper. I found no named art-bronze foundry anywhere in Egypt.

Arabic is essential for traditional workshops, and an intermediary is almost a must. Whether a maker will make a Christian figure is a question to ask, not assume.

Japan

Takaoka is the most digital-ready casting town I found anywhere. Its cooperative has cast a Buddhist triad from a master made from 3D data, and the city has said it wants overseas requests. Kyoto's Buddhist sculptors offer joined-block carving and dry lacquer, but they serve temples, and an introduction will matter.

• Yosegi-zukuri (joined-block carving). A figure built from separately carved, hollowed blocks: the same logic as splitting a digital figure into printable parts.
• Kanshitsu (dry lacquer). A hollow figure in lacquer-soaked hemp over a mould, for which a 3D print can stand in. A Japanese cousin of cartonería.
• Takaoka casting. Four hundred years of casting, with 13 methods and lacquer patinas.

Working across languages and cultures

• What travels. For casting, carving and lacquer, send a printed wax, a maquette or a printed form, not just a mesh. For cartonería and dry lacquer the print is the core.
• Language. English in Nigeria and Ghana; Spanish in Mexico; French or Wolof in Senegal; Arabic in Egypt; Japanese in Japan.
• Money and credit. Pay materials up front. Name the maker and the family workshop on the work and in any publication.
• Sacred subject matter. Ask, don't assume, whether a maker will make a Christian devotional figure.
• How sure this is. Linked facts were read on that page in November 2026. The outreach notes are researched, not lived experience.

Shortlist

1. Phil Omodamwen, Benin City: bronze from a printed wax.
2. Takaoka Doki cooperative or Nousaku, Takaoka: casting from 3D data.
3. Dr. Dina Rihan, Alexandria: digital-to-ceramic sculpture.
4. Cartonería in Mexico City and pasta de caña in Pátzcuaro: a printed core skinned locally.
5. Ateliers Makhone Diop et fils, Dakar: lost-wax casting.

Still to look at: Latin America beyond Mexico, Southeast Asia, Oceania, and named casters at Krofofrom in Ghana.

#AurieaWorldwide #ai