A Combmaker's Tale

In A Combmaker’s Tale we follow the story of two passionate makers and wonder what we can learn from them. Antun Penezić, 82, is Croatia’s last living combmaker and he will retire this year without a successor. Franka, a brand-new robot, is dedicated to follow in his footsteps and learn as much as it can from Antun in order to preserve this age-old craft from disappearing.

The two are the protagonists in a tale that questions humankind’s relation with both crafts and technology, a tale that challenges its audience to reconsider their assumptions. Do we need to preserve an age-old craft? When is something ‘hand’ made? Why do we value labour intensive hand-made objects, but not the labour involved? Why do we fear robots taking over our work if there is so much work that nobody is interested in pursuing? 

While Antun’s oral history is documentary, his robot apprentice is fiction. For now… 

Written and directed by Unfold and Alexandre Humbert 
With Antun Penezić, Mara Danica Penezić and Franka
Music Composition by Arnaud Pujol

commissioned by MADE IN Platform for Contemporary Crafts—Design Production

With the generous support of Franka Emika, Flanders - State of the Art, Creative Industry Fund NL, Netherlands Embassy in Zagreb, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

In A Combmaker’s Tale we follow the story of two passionate makers and wonder what we can learn from them. Antun Penezić, 82, is Croatia’s last living combmaker and he will retire this year without a successor. Franka, a brand-new robot, is dedicated to follow in his footsteps and learn as much as it can from Antun in order to preserve this age-old craft from disappearing.

The two are the protagonists in a tale that questions humankind’s relation with both crafts and technology, a tale that challenges its audience to reconsider their assumptions. Do we need to preserve an age-old craft? When is something ‘hand’ made? Why do we value labour intensive hand-made objects, but not the labour involved? Why do we fear robots taking over our work if there is so much work that nobody is interested in pursuing? 

While Antun’s oral history is documentary, his robot apprentice is fiction. For now… 

Written and directed by Unfold and Alexandre Humbert 
With Antun Penezić, Mara Danica Penezić and Franka
Music Composition by Arnaud Pujol

commissioned by MADE IN Platform for Contemporary Crafts—Design Production

With the generous support of Franka Emika, Flanders - State of the Art, Creative Industry Fund NL, Netherlands Embassy in Zagreb, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

In a series of accompanying interviews with specialists, the artists further unravel the manifold of threads woven into A Combmaker’s Tale:

prof. dr. Ann Dooms (BE), Research group Digital Mathematics, VUB
prof. dr. ir. Bram Vanderborght (BE), Human Robotics Research Center, VUB
Gareth Neal (UK), designer-maker
dr. Tanya Harrod (UK), crafts historian

A Combmaker's Tale is part of the exhibition MADE IN: Crafts — Design Narratives, a result of two-year activities conducted by six partnering organisations: Museum of Arts and Crafts, OAZA (Croatia); Museum of Architecture and Design (Slovenia); Werkraum Bregenzerwald (Austria); Nova Iskra, Mikser (Serbia), within a larger MADE IN Platform initiative. The exhibition showcases the Crafts Archive of 40 craftspeople from the region through photo documentation and stories, and raises questions about the production in the contemporary world within eight Crafts — Design Narratives realised through collaborations of more than 30 craftspeople and more then 40 designers from all over the Europe.

on show:
Museum of Arts & Crafts (MUO)
MADE IN: Crafts — Design Narratives
Zagreb, Croatia
17.02.2020 to 08.03.2020

Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO)
MADE IN: Crafts — Design Narratives