Historically, Molise has been characterized by an artisanal activity spread throughout the territory and characterized, in terms of production, by the creation not only of work tools, kitchen utensils and a myriad of tools and objects designed to meet the needs of life. daily but also of real art productions in different sectors.
Starting after the Second World War, as is well known, the affirmation of industrial production and the flooding of the market with a large quantity and variety of mass-produced objects ended up predetermining the choices, tastes and even needs of citizens. turned into consumers. Molise was no exception and this is especially true for the production of objects, tools and tools of everyday life, including products in the textile sector; sectors in which there are, however, some examples of a return to artisanal practice, albeit a niche one.
On the other hand, crafts with a strong artistic connotation have resisted, real excellences that this region can still boast and which pertain to different sectors both of the so-called typical craftsmanship and of the more general context of contemporary creativity that both have found in the Institute of Art of the city of Isernia, as well as in individual artisans-artists, a fundamental cultural garrison and an instrument of safeguarding and transmission to future generations.
By way of non-exhaustive, given a certain dynamism of the sector, the main expressions of manual knowledge still very vital in Molise, some of which are also connected to museum institutions strictly connected to the laboratories of exercise and transmission of the craft activity, can be summarized in the following .