The Endangered Material Knowledge Programme (EMKP) is an unprecedented initiative run by the British Museum. It aims to call attention to, research and preserve the crafts, skills, practices and knowledge of the material world that are in danger of disappearing.
Traditional ways of making things, from clothing and tools, to jewellery and houses, are endangered. In this precarious world, the diversity of material knowledge —the understanding of how to create and make objects, and the social values necessary to maintain the material world around us — is being lost at an alarming rate as mass-produced goods and industrial technologies subsume or replace local practices.