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Sustainability in Craft & Design

Aug 19th, 2011
by Kevin Murray.
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‘Sustainability’ certainly seems the word of the 21st century. But it is not unprecedented. As the papers in the latest issue of Craft & Design Enquiry show, there are strong connections with the response to industrialisation by the Arts & Crafts Movement in 19th century England. Reviewing this history may provide an important guide to the future.

Craft Australia announces the publication of the third issue of craft + design enquiry, its open access, peer-reviewed online journal interrogating discourses surrounding craft and design practice. See www.craftaustralia.org.au/cde

Sustainability in craft and design explores the role of craft and design in social change responding to the challenge of global warming.

It features articles:

  • Towards a post-consumer subjectivity: a future for the crafts in the twenty first century? by Peter Hughes
  • Ideological constructs – past visions/future possibilities: evaluating the endangered subjects in the context of emerging global sustainability and environmental agendas by Mary Loveday Edwards
  • Theorising a transformative agenda for craft by Matthew Kiem
  • Ecology and the aesthetics of imperfect balance by Roderick Bamford
  • Craft and sustainable development: reflections on Scottish craft and pathways to sustainability by Emilia Ferraro, Rehema White, Eoin Cox, Jan Bebbington and Sandra Wilson
  • Sustaining crafts and livelihoods: handmade in India by Sharmila Wood

If you would like to engage in a discussion about this issue, you are welcome to join the discussion at the Table with the Journal of Modern Craft

The Visible Hand: What Made in India means today

Jun 23rd, 2011
by Kevin Murray.
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You are invited to a discussion about Australia-India partnerships in craft and design.

Thursday 21 July 6-7:30pm
Yasuko Hiraoka Myer Room, Sidney Myer Asia Centre, University of Melbourne

Speakers include Ritu Sethi (Director, Craft Revival Trust), Chris Godsell (architect with Peddel Thorp), Sara Thorn (fashion designer) and Soumitri Varadarajan (Industrial Design, RMIT)

This is a State of Design event presented by Sangam – the Australia India Design Platform, a program of the Ethical Design Laboratory at RMIT Centre for Design, in partnership with Australia India Institute, Australia Council, City of Melbourne, Asialink and Craft Victoria.

India is both one of the world’s leading economies and a treasury of cultural traditions. While in the past, many craftspeople and artists have travelled to India for creative inspiration, today new partnerships are emerging in design. Architects, fashion designers and industrial designers are finding new opportunities in the demand for skills both inside and outside India. In particular, India has an enormous capacity of craft skill that is lacking in the West. As India gears up for increased export activity, how will the ‘Made in India’ brand compare to ‘Made in China’? What are ways of local designers to add ethical value to their products through partnership with India? How can cultural differences between Australia and India be negotiated to enable productive partnerships?

Design can play an important role in building partnerships in our region. Globalisation is now extending beyond the large-scale factories of southern China to include smaller village workshops in south Asia. This offers many opportunities for designers to create product that carries symbolic meaning. But to design product that is made in villages requires an understanding of their needs and concerns.

This event is about design practice that moves between Australia and India. It is looking at how the stories of production can travel across the supply chain from village to urban boutique.

This seminar is part of Sangam – the Australia India Design Platform, a series of forums and workshops over three years in Australia and India with the aim of creating a shared understanding for creative partnerships in product development.

RSVP by 15 July to rsvp@sangamproject.net. Inquiries info@sangamproject.net.

Sangam – the Australia India Design Platform, is managed by the Ethical Design Laboratory, a research area of RMIT Centre for Design, including researchers from Australian Catholic University, University of Melbourne and University of New South Wales. It is supported by the Australia Council as a strategic initiative of the Visual Arts Board and the Australia India Institute. Partners in Australia include Australian Craft & Design Centres including Craft Australia, Arts Law and National Association of the Visual Arts. Partners in India include Craft Revival Trust, National Institute for Design, the National Institute of Fashion Technology and Jindal Global University. This platform is associated with the World Craft Council and the ICOGRADA through Indigo, the indigenous design network.

Photo of Kolkata flower market by Sandra Bowkett

Opportunities for Pacific Island craft in Australia

Oct 8th, 2010
by Kevin Murray.
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Artist Gickmai Kundun

Artist Gickmai Kundun

You are invited to participate in a major marketing event to introduce the work of PIC’s artisans (Fine Art, Basketry, Weaving, body adornment – shell and bone jewellery, wood products and artisan pieces based on traditional knowledge) directly to Australian consumers, designers, retailers, importers and the Australian media.
In order to dispel the perception that these pieces are made for the tourism market, the event will be held in Paddington at the Global Gallery.  The site lends itself to ‘feel’ of the Pacific, not too stiff, a little rustic, warm and welcoming.  It is a large open plan warehouse space located within 100 meters of Oxford Street.  The gallery owner is very excited at the prospect of partnering with PT&I to hold a Pacific event.
Participation in the event will be open to creators from the 14 PICs.  Creators are invited to submit an expression of interest: Download FORM.
The Creative Arts service offering to the PICs creative arts sector will be to provide the venue, engage with the participants as the event manager, act as the Australian facilitator, provide framing and exhibition support.  PT&I will actively promote the event, guided by and in consultation with Trish Nicols Agency.
The successful applicants are expected to provide the products as submitted in the EOI (or by negotiation with the Creative Arts manager), product information, personal bio’s or creators statement and product photographs, undertake the freight of their work (to and from Sydney), insure their products (to and from Sydney and for the duration of the 14 day event) and are expected to fund their attendance at the exhibition for a minimum of one week. 
Participants attendance costs include travel to and from place of origin, arrange an Australian Entry Visa, accommodation and daily expenses.

If you are interested in partnering or becoming a sponsor, you will find more detailed information at www.pacifictradeinvest.org.au and go to the Creative Arts section.
It is expected that the event will deliver :
To the PIC creators

  • sales
  • insight into Australian consumer purchasing habits
  • direct feedback from the consumer market
  • opportunity to engage with potential importers, designers and other commercial opportunities

Some products that we are seeking :

  • barkcloth, masi, siapo, tapacloth
  • wooden and metal sculpture – contemporary and heritage art
  • basketry
  • fine art 
  • woven items – mats, bags, headwear, hand fans 
  • bilum – bags, bilumwear, hammocks, table wear
  • jewellery  – shell, wood, pearls, bone, hair adornment
  • textiles – tivaevae, elei prints, hand printed fabric 
  • wooden products -wooden bowls plain or with mother of pearl inlay, tables, salad servers

Expression of Interest Download FORM.
Open on the 6th October, 2010.
Close on the 25th October, 2010.
If you require any additional information, please contact the Creative Arts Manager, Ruth Choulai
Email : ruth.choulai@pacifictradeinvest.com This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Phone : (612) 9290 2133

The world needs your luck

Sep 13th, 2010
by Kevin Murray.
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Southern Charms: New Power Jewellery across the Pacific

Call for Expressions of Interest

How do we make luck where it is needed today?

Southern Charms is an exhibition of ‘power jewellery’ that demonstrates the relevance of objects to hopes and fears. It includes work designed by jewellers, designers and artists from Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Bolivia.

The exhibition will open at RMIT Gallery in February 2012. You are invited to submit an EOI, due by 4 December 2010. Please download the EOI details from here (or Spanish version). For more information about the project, visit www.craftunbound.net/projects/southern-charms.

Upcoming Charm Schools

May 3rd, 2010
by Kevin Murray.
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‘Luck is believing you’re lucky.’
Tennessee Williams

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Luck is not something that sits well with a modern way of life. Modernity is largely defined against superstitious practices of the past. Magical folk remedies have been replaced by far more reliable medical science. We no longer make sacrifices to rain gods; we have more responsible water restrictions instead. The only official acknowledgement of luck lies in the growing gambling industry on which local governments have become increasingly dependent.

So does luck still have a place in modern life? Are there occasions when we can still wish someone ‘good luck’ without appearing to be nostalgic for a more mystical past? Does carrying a lucky charm that someone has given you make any real difference to your life?

How might charms demonstrate the things that really matter to us? What might be the role of jewellery as counterbalance to the quantification of friendship in online networks like Facebook?

Towards the exhibition Southern Charms is a series of workshops to explore how to reconnect with the tradition of ‘power jewellery’ such as charms, amulets and talismans. The workshops will explore the culture of fortune:

  • its role in the history of the contemporary jewellery movement
  • its ‘social design’ elements, such as gift-giving and care
  • its potential in responding to the pressing demands in personal and public life

This workshop reviews the function of charms, particularly in jewellery, and considers their potential uses today. Participants will be able to develop new designs and test them out.

Related articles

Grass to Gold – Delhi Feb 2011

Apr 6th, 2010
by Kevin Murray.
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“Grass to Gold”

WCC—International Jewellery Convention, February 2011

Jewellery through the ages has mirrored society. How jewellery is worn, the reasons for wearing it, and the material it is made of—all are reflections of the societal values, and prevalent beliefs of the times. From Sumerian queens, Egyptian pharaohs, and Indian royalty, to the Cleopatras, Princess Dianas, and Grace Kellys of the world—the annals of history are replete with stories and pictures of ornaments used to adorn the human form.

Grass to Gold is intended to capture this diversity, symbolism, and artistic form. Last held in 2004, the convention is to be held again in 2011 in New Delhi, India. Featuring tribal, traditional, and contemporary jewellery, this event is to be sponsored by the World Crafts Council. The idea is to bring together artisans and jewellers from various parts of the world, and to encourage an open exchange of ideas, methodologies, and technologies. Above all, the forum is intended to provide a platform to learn about changing consumer trends.

The convention will explore how common, everyday material (grass) can be transformed into artistic masterpieces (gold) through the skills of the craftsperson/designer. Metal, wood, bone, shells, gems…these are just some of the raw materials that offer the potential to be transformed into exquisite pieces of jewellery.

A collaboration

Grass to Gold is intended to be a collaboration—a collaboration of artists, artisans, and designers; a collaboration of ideas; a collaboration of the traditional and the modern; a collaboration of the functional and the aesthetic. It is, above all, a coming together of skills under one roof.

Why India?

Enthused by the success of the Grass to Gold Convention in India in 2004, New Delhi has been chosen as the venue because of the consumer profile and the mindset of the consumer. Delhi offers promise as a lucrative and international market for diverse ranges of jewellery.

Participation

All five regions of the WCC will be represented in the convention, with jewellers and designers participating in the events.

Agenda

The convention features the following:

  • Seminars covering tribal, traditional, and contemporary jewellery—A forum that allows people to understand innovations in the field of jewellery, materials, design, and fashion as they adapt to changing consumer trends.
  • Exhibition—A special International event having 5 participants from each region i.e. Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, North America and Latin America.
  • Sales of Jewellery—Ranging from traditional, tribal, and contemporary using materials as diverse as fibre, metal, and recycled material. All will be specially designed for the event.
  • Workshops—On the design and finishing techniques in jewellery; made from fibre, metal, and recycled material; interactive with craftspeople from all the regions.

About the World Crafts Council

The World Crafts Council (WCC) is a non-government; non-profit organization founded by Mrs.Aileen Webb and co-founded by Ms. Margaret Patch and Smt. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay in 1964, in New York. What began as a single entity in the United States eventually got structured in to five regions—Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and Latin America. WCC is the only international NGO working in the crafts sector and is affiliated to UNESCO in a consultative status.

As a unique honour, India from the APR Region was elected to take over the Presidency of the WCC in November, 2008 with Mrs. Usha Krishna of the Crafts Council of India (CCI) at the helm.

The objectives of WCC are threefold:

  • To strengthen the status of crafts as a vital element of cultural and economic life
  • To promote a sense of fellowship among the craftspeople of the world
  • To encourage, advise, and nurture the crafts communities

Email: wcc.sect.in@gmail.com; Web: www.worldcraftscouncil.org

Share your charms

Mar 29th, 2010
by Kevin Murray.
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Southern Charms: New Power Jewellery Across the Pacific

Exhibition in development

Announcing a project to reveal new developments in ‘power jewellery’ that bring together craft cultures across the Pacific ocean. ‘Power jewellery’ claims to not only to be an object of beauty, but also to have an effect on its wearer. Most commonly, it protects the wearer against ill fortune. While traditionally this has been associated with superstitions, such as the evil eye, in this case the ‘power’ is understood as the strength that is sustained through social relations, such as friendship, solidarity or hospitality. The project is to explore ways of re-casting traditional forms of the charm for a modern secular world.

The net is cast across the Pacific, including Anglo cultures in Australasia, Aboriginal indigenous jewellery, Pacific islander ornament and charms from the Andean cultures on the Pacific’s eastern edge.

As well as providing new tools for social support, the Southern Charms project also aims to foster new conversations and networks across the Pacific. You can find out more at www.craftunbound.net/projects/southern-charms.

For expressions of interest, please contact Kevin Murray by email at charm(at)craftunbound.net. At this stage, examples of work are most welcome. Please note, the works will include charms that are designed to be used by others, rather than purely personal reflections on culture. An important question to consider is how their power be released into the world. The exhibition is planned to open in 2012.

Future events:

  • Workshop in Santiago, Chile (May 2010)
  • Workshop with the Melbourne State of Design Festival (July 2010)
  • Grass to Gold jewellery conference in Delhi (Feb 2011)
  • Workshops in Pacific (TBC)

Subscribe to Craft Unbound updates to be notified of future posts on the charmed theme.

Where to put baskets in an art gallery?

Mar 15th, 2010
by Kevin Murray.
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Announcing an upcoming panel session:

The place of collective craft in the modern museums and art galleries of the Global South

This panel session is part of the conference:

Museums and art galleries in the Global South are challenged by the existence of active traditional craft collectives.

Conventional Western approaches to art history focus on individual creativity. The individual artist is seen as the ultimate site for development of new art forms. While inspiration might be drawn from collective traditions, such as Picasso’s experience of African masks, the ultimate end of analysis is the product realised by an individual. This can be seen as part of a cultural economy that deals in a currency of genius, intellectual property and originality. The colonial process entails the extension of this economy into alternative systems where culture is more a matter of collective meaning and ancestral authority.

Such methodologies have a home in the trans-Atlantic North, where traditional cultures are rarely found outside of the modernist lens. In the Global South, however, there is sometimes a bifocal arrangement where modernity co-exists with collective systems.

Compared to visual arts, craft practice depends more on the reproduction of traditional skills than individual originality. In the North, much contemporary craft has been assimilated into modernity through the introduction of studio practice. In the South, craft is still practiced in communities where it is grounded in collective identities, such as village, tribe, caste or guild.

If art history in the Global South is to reflect the nature of its democracies, then methodologies need to be adopted that account for art that has been forged through collective agencies, where it would be inappropriate to single out an individual as the sole representative. This could be seen to apply to forms such as telephone wire-weaving in South Africa, ‘tjanpi’ sculptures in the Western Desert of Australia, tapa cloths from the Pacific, Pattamadai mat weavers in India, Relmu Witral weavers in Chile. How can these collective art forms be incorporated into a history of art in the Global South?

Some of the issues this raises include:

  • How can innovation be accounted for within a collective practice?
  • To what extent can Western institutions such as art galleries accommodate collective art forms such as village crafts?
  • Are there productive ways in which individual artists can collaborate with traditional communities?
  • How can what might be considered a traditional art form be given a diachronic reading through art history?
  • How might individuals that emerge from collective settings to be granted status as ‘living treasures’, ‘masters of their craft’, or ‘artists in their own right’?
  • How to traditional Indigenous crafts compared to hobby circles in the Global North?

This discussion is relevant to those working across the broader South, including African tribal arts, Asian programs for upliftment of traditional crafts, Oceanic models for dealing with traditional knowledge and Latin American forms of engagement with the so called ‘pre-Colombian’ cultures. This also extends to the representation of these in institutions situated in the Global North.

Issues at play here connect closely with existing forums such as Journal of Modern Craft, Craft & Design Enquiry and Southern Perspectives.

For further information about this panel, contact Kevin Murray (kevin(at)craftunbound.net)

Proposals for conference papers should be sent to the Chairperson of SAVAH, Dr Federico Freschi (federico.freschi(at)its.ac.za).

Carbon Issue: Sustainability in Craft & Design

Feb 16th, 2010
by Kevin Murray.
2 comments

Here’s a call for an upcoming issue of a new craft journal that I’m involved in. I hope it brings together some new and thoughtful perspectives on the way designing and making engage with the re-valuation of  the planet’s resources.

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CALL FOR PAPERS

Carbon Issue: Sustainability in Craft & Design

craft + design enquiry is seeking papers for the Carbon Issue: Sustainability in Craft & Design.

This issue welcomes academic papers documenting research that contributes to an understanding of sustainability as a context for craft and design. This understanding ranges from the practical to the symbolic.

Papers can include:

  • A review historical movements such as the Arts & Crafts movement or Bauhaus
  • A reflection on current craft and design projects
  • An engagement with contemporary sustainability discourse
  • A speculation on the future of craft and design in a world more than two degrees warmer than today
  • A critical examination of the relationship between sustainability and the aesthetic dimension

Specific areas of interest include:

Green thumbprint

Can handmade production provide a more sustainable alternative to industrial processes?

Craft ethic

Does the broader ethic of craft, involving local production, symbolic value and social exchange provide an alternative to global consumerism?

Carbon aesthetics

How does the material and organic dimension of craft appear from the ‘cloud’ of online communication – as outmoded or higher truth?

Papers are due on 30 June 2010. It is highly recommended that you send an outline to the guest editor by the 30 March 2010. Kevin Murray is Guest Editor for this issue.

  • For inquiries, please contact Kevin Murray at kevin(at)craftunbound.net or Jenny Deves at jenny.deves(at)craftaustralia.org.au
  • To submit papers please register online
  • See author guidelines

craft + design enquiry is a new, open access, peer-reviewed, online journal that interrogates discourses surrounding craft and design practice. It is published by the Craft Australia Research Centre. Craft Australia is funded by the Australia Council, through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian Government and all state and territory governments, and the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian government’s arts funding and advisory body.

Journal website: www.craftaustralia.org.au/cde

A Fair Trade for Creative Labour – forum

Oct 9th, 2009
by Kevin Murray.
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The following forum is an opportunity to bring together critical perspectives on cultural partnerships with the real-life demands of those working in the field. It will provide the context for the development of a Code of Practice for Craft-Design Collaborations

Title: A Fair Trade for Creative Labour: How to sustain trust in north-south collaborations
Date: Monday 19 October 1-2pm
Location: Design Research Institute, RMIT University Level 3, 110 Victoria St, Melbourne

Speakers:

  • Dr Linda Chalmers, Product Manager, Oxfam Australia
  • Professor Donald Feaver, Associate Professor of Law, RMIT University
  • Professor Mark Minchinton, Professor of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education, RMIT University
  • Associate Professor Tim Scrase, Director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies , University of Wollongong

Globalisation threatens cultural diversity through the loss of local markets and commodification. In response to this, there is increasing interest by consumers to support local producers through their purchases. Fair Trade has emerged as one attempt to guarantee producer benefits.

But there are problems. Fair Trade sometimes appears as a reasonably blunt instrument that does not reflect the complex relations between rich and poor worlds, such as when a designer seeks to develop a product with rural artisans. Are there ways of strengthening such forms of accreditation to reflect the complex negotiations about issues such as cultural authenticity that arise in product development?

Meanwhile, we are seeing the emergence of various ‘soft laws’ to regulate global industries and maintain consumer trust. What instrument might assist in collaborations between designers and artisans? How might this inform the concerns of consumers in their desire to do good by purchasing these products? Is there a place for this in projects that involve Australian Indigenous craft and design?

This panel discussion provides an opportunity to consider the role of a code in cultural industries involving relations between peoples on either side of the global divide. The participants offer alternative and important perspectives on this process.

Organised by Dr Kevin Murray, Adjunct Professor in the School of Art at RMIT University. Please RSVP Monday 12 October to Emma Barrow for catering purposes. emma.barrow@rmit.edu.au

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