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 [...]
Posts Tagged ‘design’
A Fair Trade for Creative Labour – forum
A cultural future, made in Italy
The first UNESCO World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries occurred at Monza, near Milan, 24-26 September. It brought together around 200 participants from areas of fashion, business, politics, design and craft. There were a broad diversity of nationalities, with strong representations from Italy, France, Uruguay, South Africa. As the only representative from the [...]
On the one hand Spring, and on the other, Autumn
Today in the South our calendars tell us that this is the beginning of spring. But as trees come into blossom here, the leaves will begin to wither and die in the North.
In his novel Rasselas, Samuel Johnson attempted to discover the secret of happiness. After many adventures, he concluded that any happiness is [...]
Craft of management redux
A recent Background Briefing was devoted to the culture of MBAs. It claimed that the arrogance fostered in business schools like Harvard encouraged the reckless financial speculation which triggered the current global crisis.
The program featured the views of Will Hopper, an economist and author of The Puritan Gift: Triumph, Collapse and Revival of an [...]
Time to take a front seat
Congratulations to Simone LeAmon for winning the 2009 Cicely & Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award which opened at the National Gallery of Victoria last night. Her Lepidoptera chair continues the creative use of recycled materials that she had forged in her classic Bowling Arm bracelets.
Other entrants included Adam Cornish, Lambie Chan, Lucas Chirnside, Matthew [...]
Children can be the link between craft and design
The Tradition for Modern Times was an intense workshop to complete the Selling Yarns conference. Participants brought a range of skills and experiences, particularly from Indigenous and artisan craft centres. In first considering the kinds of objects that have value in life, there was a great emphasis on some knowledge or connection to those [...]
The ethical turn, turn, turn
‘The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger.’
Sholom Aleichem
As we saw a ‘linguistic turn’ transform humanities in the late 20th century, on our side of the millennium it seems that we are witnessing a wave of cultural accountability – an ‘ethical turn’.
Culture is no longer ‘innocent’ of politics. An artist cannot draw inspiration [...]
Buddy, can you spare design?
There’s a raging debate in the US media about the call to bring design into account for its recent elitism. Echoing the recriminations over reckless financial dealers on Wall Street, Michael Cannell argued in the New York Times that the indulgent excesses of celebrity design will be a natural victim to the economic downturn. He [...]
Garth Clark in top form
I heartily recommend that you listen to Garth Clark’s lecture at Portland’s Museum of Contemporary Craft. It’s typically witty, droll, informed and sharply polemical. He takes Glenn Adamson’s line that 20th century craft went astray by trying to dress itself up as visual arts.
Like all good conservative critics, Clark polices the social boundaries for [...]
South African design goes South
The Design Indaba is the leading design event in Cape Town, South Africa. This year, they are using the theme of ‘South’ to celebrate the ‘gloriously positive, ridiculously naïve and relentlessly spontaneous’ elements of creativity in their country.
Wouldn’t it be something for the designers and craftspersons in other Southern countries to join in on [...]
