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 says this is something to celebrate:

The pain of layoffs notwithstanding, the design world could stand to come down a notch or two — and might actually find a new sense of relevance in the process. That was the case during the Great Depression, when an early wave of modernism flourished in the United States, partly because it efficiently addressed the middle-class need for a pared-down life without servants and other Victorian trappings.

Naturally, there were many designers who took umbrage at these remarks. Murray Moss lead the defence in Design Observer to argue that one-off works like Campana Brothers $9,000 Corallo Chair represent great creative achievements that all should aspire to.

We are the fortunate benefactors, not the dupes, of design’s evolution since our recovery from the last Great Depression. We should defend that progression with resolve. We should push forward, in whatever ways are still possible, even more strongly. We should lock arms and support one another. And we should not hesitate to challenge those, like Mr. Cannell, who would somehow, mistakenly and punitively, equate the current global economic meltdown with design’s recent surge. We should, and will, refuse to go back into the box.

What seems missing from this debate is a sense of the creative possibilities of egalitarian design. This involves changing the social dynamic of design from individual distinction to collective identity. That’s kind of transformation has certainly been successful with online networking. We can only imagine what kind of promiscuous design it might foster.

• The image above is from Marcel Wanders’ Happy Hour Chandelier

Related posts:

1. A cultural future, made in Italy The first UNESCO World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries...

The owner is originally from the ‘provinces’ and remembers her first ever sale from a little garden that she maintained. In honour of this, she has established a huerto (plot garden) on the busy street. She was surprised to see the space respected and everything kept in its place. Once the plants grow, her intention is to place a notice inviting neighbours to take from mature plants.

Jo! seems another example of the kind of abajismo (pride in lowness) that is so dynamic in Chilean culture today. Another example are the cheap handmade books published by Anamita Cartonera in honour of people who live on the streets.

No related posts.

2009 will feature a number of forums for thinking about the role of art in a new bilateral world. The Selling Yarns conference in March will include workshops for artisan-design collaborations. In June, at Craft Victoria, the World of Small Things: An Exhibition of Craft Diplomacy will feature the fruits of dialogue between first and third worlds. And at the same time, an issue of Artlink will be published to air the complex questions in the new bilateral global order.

Here’s a call for expressions of interest for the Artlink issue: After the Missionaries: Art in a Bilateral World

Movements like Make Poverty History reinforce a vision of the world divided between helpless victims and those able to save them. Divisions between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ nations, ‘advanced’ and ‘emerging’ economies, ‘first’ and ‘third’ worlds, assume a singular path of history, on which the West happens to be ahead.

But the world is changing. Old hierarchies are challenged now by the growth of China and India as ‘superpowers’. They are more than victims of colonisation and Western imperialism. They have their own ambitions to be seen as leaders on the world stage. Over the past two years, China, India and Japan have all held summits for the leaders of the African nations.

Climate change forces us to reconsider the relations between North and South. A major challenge of climate change is to establish a plan that has support of both rich and poor nations. The global impact of carbon emissions requires a global consensus for action. While the first world focuses on carbon reduction, the third world argues that it should not be made to suffer for sake of the rich nations. Negotiations around this are critical for the future of the planet.

Australia has been positioned as a key mediator between first and third worlds. Though a rich nation by world standards, Australia does not have the reputation of an imperial power and finds itself amongst the countries of the South, at least geographically. As potentially the ‘most Asia-literate country in the collective West’, Australia has been granted the role of mediator between USA and China.

Art has an important role to play in this.

The history of Western cultural engagement with the third world has been shadowed by primitivism. The energies and traditions of the colonised world have provided fuel to modernist and post-colonial movements in rich nations. Such dialogues have been relatively unilateral. What do the subjects of the primitivist gaze gain from this attention? How do we engage with cultures of the third world in a way that is reciprocal? While politicians go through the formalities of global summits on climate change, what role can artists and makers play in stitching together a fabric of artistic exchanges between rich Australia and poor nations?

This issue of Artlink is intended as a forum for difficult questions demanded by our time:

• On what basis can artists from the first and third worlds work together?
• On what terms can an artist or designer engage traditional artisans?
• Is visual art the exclusive domain of global elites?
• Is world craft a version of ‘noble savage’?
• Are human rights and environmentalism the thin end of the Western wedge?

We are looking for articles about:

• First world artists working in collaboration with artists and communities in the third world
• Designers engaging in product development with traditional artisans
• Australian artists and designers working in the galleries and studios of the third world
• Art practices that involve critical dialogue between first and third world experiences

Articles are due by 1 March 2009. Payment is $300 per thousand words. Please send expressions of interest to Kevin Murray at beyond@kitezh.com.

Related posts:

1. Missionaries – the end of after We had the last of the After the Missionaries discussions...
2. Public Competition For a Painted Mural on a Rented Ghetto Wall For the After the Missionaries issue of Artlink, a number...

Above, The Network panel installation, stainless steel, urethane coating 380 x 42 cm Right, Location Device brooch, stainless steel, urethane coating, 5cm diameter

As in their collaborative work General Assembly, Porter’s solo body of work operates at both an aesthetic and sociological level. For the Location Devices exhibition at e.g.etal Flinders Lane, Porter has constructed a sublime grid in radiant blue coated stainless steel, with blue circles embedded as nodes in a larger network. You can purchase one of these nodes, each of which can be clipped on to clothing. Porter has developed an ingeniously simple device for marking difference. The blue circle identifies the wearer as part of broader network of those who have purchased work from this grid. It’s an exemplary combination of form and anthropology.

Over the years, Susan Cohn has played a prominent role in Melbourne’s jewellery scene with exhibitions that put a rigorous modernist design to the service of urban tribalism. Location Devices shows how generative this way of working can be. But does it need the particular sociological soil that this city offers? How dependent are these bright anodised forms on the Melbourne black?

No related posts.

Deganit Stern-Schocken, Pendant: Untitled, Smashed cans, zircons

Another interesting series of work at Klimt, this time from Israel. The exhibition ‘Crafting a Culture’ features work from four Israeli jewellers. The work of Deganit Stern Schocken in particular has interesting resonance with the poor jewellery scene in Australia.

With an interest in architecture, Schocken explores links between the body and the street. In the piece above, she has incorporated precious stones into some aluminium road kill. It offers an interesting urban twist to the story of ornament that makes precious that which is of least value in our world.

No related posts.