Best in show | Layered Legacies, 2024, by Mani Kambo

“At Create/Elevate – our third craft biennial – 17 contemporary makers from around the world are celebrating their expertise and using their work to illuminate the complex history of Harewood House.

The fine art interiors are, of course, the work of many of the most revered craft-artists and designers in history, such as Thomas Chippendale and Robert Adam.

One of the new names responding to their work is Mani Kambo, an emerging print and installation artist who created a site-specific wallpaper for Somerset House a few years ago.

She has spent time at Harewood House looking closely at Adam’s decorative designs, and has combined imagery from the plaster ceilings with themes from ancient Egypt and China seen in the furnishings to celebrate the human touch present in all the marks, carvings and patterning.

Her hand-block printed wallpaper is inspired by the work of Armenian artist David Ohannessian, who founded a school of ceramics in Jerusalem in the 1920s and became involved with the restoration of the Dome of the Rock shrine in the old city.

While Harewood House looks like a traditional English country house, an interrogation of the provenance and history of the interiors reveals a global story of artistic exchange, which Kambo is keen to explore.

One of the biennial’s aims is to demonstrate that craft is not just something you look at but a useful thing you can do – a skill passed down through generations and across continents with the power of bringing people together to positively transform societies.

Different crafts – ceramics, textiles, jewellery, sculptural installations, embroidery and furniture – have been brought together in the gardens and house, and hands-on making workshops will encourage family participation.

Rosa Harradine, whose handmade brushes made from natural, sustainable materials are as beautiful as they are useful, will show her work in the house and will supervise a broom-making workshop, for example.

Visitors will enjoy a truly multisensory experience as they tour the rooms of the state floor, where commissions reflect each area’s original functions.

British-born Ghanaian designer Kusheda Mensah’s furniture installation acts as an alternative library, a space for different people to talk about a better future in which no one lives in isolation.

The Britto Arts Trust from Dhaka has filled a room with beautifully crafted objects, giving it the look and feel of a street market in Bangladesh. Even the fruit and vegetables have been made by hand.

Outside, Rebecca Chesney’s field of multi-coloured windsocks has been crafted from tents discarded at music festivals, to act as a barometer of our role in the climate crisis.

Many festival-goers leave their tents behind when the music stops – believing that charities will collect them for reuse – without considering the environmental cost of producing them cheaply in the first place.

Craft continues to have the power to surprise and inspire.”

Interview by John Holt. The Harewood Biennial 2024: Create/Elevate runs until 20 October

Museums Association conference (12-14 November, Leeds) delegates will have the opportunity to visit the Harewood House Christmas exhibition