Something between art and commerce: A sociological study of modern Iranian arts and crafts movement

The status of handicrafts has always been controversial throughout history. In this regard, three periods can be distinguished: the first, in which, handicrafts are classified as poor cousins of fine arts, under the dual high/low, the second with the emergence of arts and crafts movement, where we see the position of artists and craftsmen, and finally, in the third period, we see the emergence of creative industries, which on the one hand is associated with the concept of self-improvement (amateur) and on the other with the reproduction of the discourse hegemony of sublime arts. Many academic writings have focused on the emergence of these new models of creative economics in the shadow of Web 2 culture. Research has shown that Etsy, as an e-commerce market, blurs the line between professional and amateur works and complicates the debate. The question that arises here is whether in today's world, with the movement of handicrafts towards the ‘“post-professional” era’, have the concepts of "amateur" and "professional" lost their application? The starting point of this article is here and it intends to answer this through qualitative-exploratory studies, also in order to address the position of modern handicrafts in Iran. For this purpose, two types of builders are separated from each other: professionals and amateurs. Each brigade has its own unique characteristics. Professionals are art graduates who describe their work in terms of specific concepts. Amateurs, on the other hand, are self-taught artists.