1. With what purpose did you go to Mongolia?
The aim of the trip to Mongolia was to investigate in what way a productive collaboration can arise between Mongolian craftsmen in the city and in the country, and Dutch companies. For that purpose we travelled to that country with a group of designers to see to what extent our ideas can be carried out there.

2. What was your first impression when you arrived at your destination?
I experienced Mongolia as a fantastic country, with valuable traditions, that we have to deal with respectfully. Beautiful people who live in a powerful, grand environment (Mongolia is twenty times bigger than the Netherlands and has a population of 3 million). The first day on the steppes I felt the wind in my ears from a dove evading the claws of a peregrine falcon through a nose dive! But the city of Ulaanbaatar, in which a third of the complete Mongolian population lives, was fascinating as well. A city that is still trying to liberate itself from 90 years of Soviet domination, that produced ugly grey concrete flats. Between them the many-coloured little temples and gers. A typical Third World metropolis with lots of dust and potholes in the roads. We spent a lot of time with wool- and feltworkers at the academy of arts, trying out techniques and exchanging our knowledge.

3. What was your general impression of the people you were dealing with in Mongolia?
Nice, poor, eager to learn, and proud. You only need to visit one of their beautiful museums to quickly find out that Mongolia has always had a very rich tradition. Much of that has been preserved, but the conditions are often appallingly bad. People have to fight for their existence. Tourism is an important source of income. Therefore, touristic articles are often the main source of income for the craftsmen. It took a bit getting used to for them that we came up with a completely different concept.

4. What was the organisational structure? Were you in direct contact with the population or was there an organisation acting as go-between?
We were in direct contact with the population. All in all we worked very intensively with about 40, 50 people. We often had to improvise, because they have limited resources and tools. On the Mongolian side there was a coordinator, a truly amazing woman, who was around to help us almost day and night if we needed something, apart from her regular job. We would have liked to have a few more interpreters at our disposal, though; quite often we had to use our hands and feet to understand each other. Which had its charm in its own right, but at times was pretty frustrating as well.

5. Who went on the trip as well and with what purpose?
Apart from myself and two other designers, a few other people went along. Someone who was involved in dye-techniques for wool, felt, and horsehair. Someone who evaluated the project. The Dutch coordinator.

6. Describe your most inspiring moment
Tough question, there were so many highlights: the closing festivities with the Mongolian shepherds on the steppes; visiting a temple where a Tibetan lama held a lecture, that was translated by a Mongolian lama into Mongolian, and where we saw a tremendous amounts of smiles; visiting a Mongolian overtone singer, waking up under a starry sky that we are no longer familiar with; boys standing on fiery horses with their arms above their heads, rounding up the sheep; the surprise on the faces of the Mongolian felters when they discovered a completely new technique together with us...

7. What was it like to experience the product and production in real life?
Exciting, mostly because we couldn't prepare everything in advance and communicate it. When it did succeed, that was very nice. Naturally there were failures as well. It was also very beautiful to see these people at work in primitive, or probably more aptly put, natural circumstances. Felters who spread the carded wool on the banks of a river in the middle of the steppes to start felting. Something to be envious about.

8. What is your advice for other designers who want to make a trip such as this?
It’s most important to realise that the people there aren't stupid or lazy, but that the means are primitive. You have to take that into account when making big plans. If you want a lot, you will have to take care that they have the means to deliver that as well (work space, running water, electricity, gas, etc.). And show them how our culture works, so they can understand why our wishes sometimes differ from theirs. Apart from that it is also very important that you have a good interpreter. Many people there only speak Mongolian or Russian, often they don’t speak English. It also advisable to learn the Cyrillic alphabet, so that you can at least read and pronounce a (street) name.

9. …What you would like to say...
Call someone from Mongolia a Mongolian, and never a Mongol!