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Whilst on a global scale Australia still dawdles on ecodesign, pockets of cutting-edge research and design are moving ahead with international recognition. Overview of events. In 1991 RMIT in Melbourne hosted the EcoDesign 1 Conference 1989-1992 Designers for the Planet, Perth WA Society for Responsible Design (1990 - ) NSW Re-Design Group Melbourne, Victoria (1991-93).

John Gertsakis

Australian Design

The Domestic Companion: Taking Stock of Furniture Futures

In 1990/91 the author was commissioned to research and develop a national furniture industry strategy. Examines domestic furniture futures, the concept of home, flexibility, transverse use, product families, trends and future furniture companions.

Craig Bremner

Australian Design

Exhibiting Furniture

The exhibiting and collecting of contemporary Australian furniture design is a telling indicator of how we as a society regard design. Australian furniture has been seen at SOFA (Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art - Gallery Trade Fair Chicago USA) since 1993.

Kathy Fox

Australian Design

Lighting Design

Market size in Australia is the main hurdle to successful lighting however there are designers who are making inroads with Australian lighting design.

Tim Laurence

Australian Design

A Touching Story

Sydney's Powerhouse Museum began collecting artefacts relating to industrial design in the late 1980s. Since then a number of designers and consultancies have been represented in the collection. The author, curator of Industrial Design, Innovation and Marketing at the Powerhouse tells the story of these unsung heros and heroines of the everyday.

Richard Wood

Australian Design

Out of the Garden and into the Landscape

What landscape architects in Australia have been doing since about 1970 is to begin to address the Australian lanscape in all its extraordinariness and vastness - as a subject for design and interpretation in the creation not only of our settlements but all those places where we may leave our mark, even if we don't inhabit them.

Catherine Bull

Australian Design

Designing for the Computer Screen

Design for the new media encourages models which utilise multi-dimensional connectivities. Vertical layering of data is their area of exploration in comparison to the more conventional horizontal depiction of information on the page or in narrative cinema. The grammar of the interface designer has had to alter to accommodate random access and idiosyncratic hierarchies established by the user.

Cecelia Cmielewski

Australian Design

Magabala Books: The Politics of Design

Magabala Books, Australia's first indigenous publishing house takes its name from an indigenous vine that flourishes on the pindan soil of north western Australia. Sam Cook is the publisher's first indigenous designer. She talks with Mara Mann.

Mara Mann

Australian Design

Australian Fine China: Artists and Industry

Perth based Australian Fine China, the only maker of porcelain in Australia and New Zealand, is currently using a number of artist-designers to move from being a stolid china manufacturer for railways and cafes to one whose products are seen in top flight restaurants in the big hotels, in classy tourist venues and now on the dining tables of the nation. They have some way to go to entice Australians to purchase the 'local product' for their homes but they are making steady progress.

Dorothy Erickson

Australian Design

From the Bush to the Street: A Change in Direction for Australian Fashion

Despite the pull of the outback and the image of the Aussie bushman, the majority of modern Australians are urban dwellers, strung around the perimeter of the Continent. Little known to the outside world beyond our cultural icons of the kangaroo and the koala, few look to Australia as a source of contemporary design in any form, let alone fashion. Until recently, the global fashion market has seen fit to ignore the rest of our antipodean designers.

Margot Riley

Australian Design

Indigenous Australian Dyed and Printed Textiles

Textile traditions of indigenous Australians have provided an impressive basis for their current divergent development within the framework of introduced technologies. Looks at various textile producing centres around Australia Tiwi, Ernabella, Kaltjiti, Injalak, Keringke, Ngunga Designs, Warta kutju, Kaen design, Djookan design....

Doreen Mellor

Australian Design

Spots n' Dots n' Stars n' Bars

Australian Textile design from an RMIT perspective surveying current and future initiatives - practice based issues of developing guidelines for copyright in an industry that is known for - in polite terms-recycling and reworking proven designs, to the more speculative concept of creating a dialogue in textiles between Australian and other countries via the internet.

Juliette Peers

Australian Design

Desert Designs

Based in Fremantle, Western Australia, Desert Designs (begun in 1984) is a concept marketing company that deals with authentic Aboriginal art works and acts as a nexus with manufacturing industries to facilitate their transition into products and their entry into retail markets.

Paul Counsel

Australian Design

SA Designer-makers Turn to Industry

A unique exhibition curated by Steve Ronayne (owner of Aptos Cruz Galleries) held at theJam Factory Gallery in 1996 'South Australia - Emerging crucible of contemporary design' showed just how many local designer-makers of contemporary craft are adopting industrial processes in their work.

Jane Williams

Australian Design

Andrew Carter: Theatre Designer to the World

Andrew Carter is a much sought after theatre designer. He is a creator of innovative sets and has received many presitigous commissions.

Dorothy Erickson

Australian Design

The Soft Machine

Interview with Andrew Rogers, Director of the ARID industrial design group (within the University of Adelaide's Research precinct). They spoke about the seductive blurrings of boundaries between man and soft machine.

Andrew Zheluk

Australian Design

Furniture Design in Western Australia

The present era of contemporary Western Australian furniture design can be thought of as beginning under the influence of David Foulkes-Taylor (1956 until his death in 1966).

Helen Ross

Australian Design

Gifted Arts

In 1992 the Premier of WA initiated the Premier's Gift Commissioning Project in conjunction with the Crafts Council of WA inviting artists to design and produce protocol gifts and souvenirs within a lower price range, which though of exclusive design could be manufactured in multiples using light local industrial processes where appropriate.

Maggie Baxter

Australian Design

Serious Fun

Book review Absolutely Mardi Gras Jointly published by Doubleday and the Powerhouse Museum 1997 RRP $29.95

Pat Hoffie

Australian Design

Inventive Australia

Book review Know-how, the guide to innovation in Australia Interactive CD Rom published by Powerhouse Publications, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney NSW Macintosh/Windows RRP $99.95

Lyn Tune

Australian Design

Seeing a Plant: Being a Plant

Exhibition review Stephanie Radok Greenaway Gallery, Adelaide SA 11 September - 6 October 1996

Cath Kenneally

Australian Design

Petals on a Wet Black Bough

Exhibition review In Remembrance of Things Past... Angela Valamanesh Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide SA 18 October - 1 December 1996

Brenda Goggs

Australian Design

Loungeroom of Ideas

Exhibition review Messy and Restless: Helene Czerny, Julie Duffield, Paul Hoban, Terri Hoskin, Derek O'Connor Contemporary Art Centre Adelaide SA 1- 24 November 1996

Gavin Malone

Australian Design

Out of the Kitchen

Exhibition review Masters Exhibitions 1996 12-28 September: Greg Geraghty, Johnathon Dady, Paul Dryga, Namchou Chitma 10-26 October: Rhonda Wheatland, Amanda Poland, Helen Stacey, Elizabeth Abbott, Brian Lynch 7- 23 November: Greg Fullerton, Danielle O'Brien, Julia McGuire, Harekrishna Bag, University of SA Museum, Adelaide SA

Joanne Harris

Australian Design

Wanton Fruits

Exhibition review Barbie Kjar Dick Bett Gallery, Salamanca Place, Hobart Tasmania 26 November - 10 December 1996

Mary Knights

Australian Design

Share-house Art

Exhibition review Tasmania art co-op: recent works from Australian Artist-Run Initiatives The Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart Tasmania 15 November - 8 December 1996

Robyn Daw

Australian Design

The Nature of Perception

Exhibition review Howard Taylor: Paintings and Drawings Galerie Dusseldorf, Perth WA 1- 22 September 1996

Clarissa Ball

Australian Design

Space Defined

Exhibition review Jewellery by Brenda Ridgewell, New Collectibles Gallery, East Fremantle WA 20 November - 1 December 1996

Gillian Rainer

Australian Design

Aboriginal Art, the Nation State Suburbia

In Englishwe use the word 'country' in two main senses: to refer to nation states, and to speak about rural lands beyond the big cities and their suburbs. In Australia there is historically a third zone out past the country; the now quickly shrinking Outback.

Peter Sutton

Art and the Economy

What is Australian Work?

I am often asked where I originally come from. And, if I am in a wicked mood, I will try to embarass the questioner with some non-answer. A persistent enquirer will ignore the flippancy and further qualify their question by rephrasing the terminology to ask whether I was born in Australia (which incidentally, was the form the question was usually couched in up to the 1980s when issues of multiculturalism introduced a so-called obscure politeness.

Susan Cohn

Art and the Economy

Proposals from Invisible Worlds

This paper is almost all stories. Each one is part of much larger ones about cultures changing and moving to occupy the same geographies. We can speak of the conflicts and possibilities that seem to ignite by spontaneous combustion in these sites. But there is a series of sites from which I wish to speak: spaces of crisis that seem to lie within my person. B/w photographs of ritual and shrine.

Marian Pastor Roces

Art and the Economy

The Recession and the Arts

The theme in this article is that the recession will have significant implications for the arts community. The argument is that the recession is not just a temporary phenomenon, related to a decline in demand, but is the product of weaknesses in the Australian economy and of the peculiar nature of economic growth in the 1980s....

Greg McCarthy

Art and the Economy

Art, Sports Stars and the Depression: Knocking at the Door of the Special World

Our sports stars are successful because they are not burdened by funding programs which dribble a meagre supply to an army of unknown novices....the arts need radical strategies to help them survive the recession and achieve greater audience participation. (this article is responded to by Norm Austin, the Deputy Director of the Art Gallery of NSW).

Nelson English

Art and the Economy

A response to the Article by Nelson English

A response to the article by Nelson English in this issue of Artlink Volume 12 no 3.

Norm Austin

Art and the Economy

Arts and the Economy?

Just recently I was giving a lecture to a large group of arts people when a person in the audience had a go at me for talking about the economy of the arts and not about art. I, too, am very conscious of the intellectual dilemma in this regard.

Max Bourke

Art and the Economy

The Silence of the Lambs: Before Leaving for a Trip Abroad

Looks at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Circular Quay in Sydney and the issue of economics.

Anita Aarons

Art and the Economy

The Artist, the Gallery and the Recession

In thinking about the repercussions of the recession for artists and galleries, I am worried that our dismay at the present hardship and heartbreak may blind us to the fundamental recession related changes to the artist-gallery system which tend to the detriment of artists and forever endanger the quality and excitement of the Australian art scene.

Geoffrey Legge

Art and the Economy

The Arts- Survival of the BIGGEST?

The arts community of Australia has weathered the recession extremely well. While shopkeepers are shutting their doors, factories are shedding their workers, and the average Australian contemplates life in the same house for the next five years, the average artist continues on pretty much as always.

Brian Tucker

Art and the Economy

Incidental Benefits: Arts Industry Rhetoric and Policy Objectives

The notion of the arts as an industry dates in Australia from about 10 years ago with the beginnings of statistical data measuring the economic impact of artistic activity. ... (Response to this article by Anna Ward, Director of the National Association of Visual Arts also in this issue of Artlink.)

Peter Anderson

Art and the Economy

A Response to 'Incidental Benefits'

Response to the article by Peter Anderson in this issue of Artlink examining arts industry rhetoric and policy objectives.

Anna Ward

Art and the Economy

The Australia Shop -- EXPO 92 Seville

The Australian Government's decision to participate in Expo 92 in Seville, the biggest Expo this century, has culminated in a presence recently described in a 'Best of Expo Guide' as "high spirited in mood and one of the most distinctive pavilions at Expo."

Marjorie Johnson

Art and the Economy

The Ham Museum ARCO 1992

Critically examines the 11th manifestation of the international art fair ARCO in Madrid. Photographs of the art fair included in the article.

Ian North

Art and the Economy

Predicaments of Furniture Design

No matter what we say about furniture, it seems to have been said before. Small wonder that painting and installation attracts our writers more than furniture, when discourse about tables and chairs is confined to the rehearsal of so many grim platitudes. But if banality beleaguers the objects themselves, it is still more oppressively unavoidable in discussion of the unfortunate Australian industries of furniture design and manufacture.

Robert Nelson

Art and the Economy

The Business of Art

It's not easy to make a conference look sexy - especially when it's about regional galleries. But the team at the five year old Regional Galleries Association of Queensland managed just that in the late winter sunshine of Cairns last year.

Margriet Bonnin

Art and the Economy

Culture as Transformation: ARX

Artist's regional exchange (ARX). Events such as ARX in Perth are rare and potentially of such value for me that, although not a participating artist this time, I was determined to travel from the east to attend. Four views on the exchange See also the articles by Ian Howard, Anne Kirker and Adrian Jones in this issue of Artlink.

Vivienne Binns

Art and the Economy

Towards a Legitimate Interest

The most important questions that arose from ARX3 related to the issue of legitimacy of interest. Four views on the exchange See also the articles by Vivienne Binns, Anne Kirker and Adrian Jones in this issue of Artlink.

Ian Howard

Art and the Economy

Dialogue with Thailand

Interview format with Dr Poshyananda One of Four views on the exchange. See also the articles by Vivienne Binns, Ian Howard and Adrian Jones in this issue of Artlink.

Anne Kirker

Art and the Economy

Managing ARX

Written by the co-ordinator of the past three ARX events which have taken place in Perth Western Australia. Four views on the exchange See also the articles by Vivienne Binns, Anne Kirker and Ian Howard in this issue of Artlink.

Adrian Jones

Art and the Economy

There's Magic in your Hands

Looks at the artist in residence program for Thancoupie at the Hamley Bridge Primary School South Australia in May 1992.

Karen Brown

Art and the Economy

Vicious Circles: Women's Exclusion from Contemporary Visual Art

Written with Cassandra Cavanaugh with graphs illustrating participation of women in the various sectors of the visual arts.

Dorothy Broom

Art and the Economy

The Brush-Off Syndrome: Stage Design, History and Visual Art in Adelaide

Clear discussion of the issues facing stage and set designers in the visual arts world.

Pamela Zeplin

Art and the Economy

Incomplete Identities: A Critical Study of the Work of Mike Parr

Book review Identities: A Critical Study of the Work of Mike Parr David Broomfield University of Western Australia Press 330 pp

Bert Flugelman

Art and the Economy

Demystifying Art Criticism

Book review Art Connections Jenny Aland and Max Darby Heinemann, Melbourne 1991 RRP $29.95

Catherine Speck

Art and the Economy

The Money, the Means and the Info...

Book review The Money and the Means: Grants, Scholarships and Opportunities for Professional Development Art Museums Association of Australia 1992 RRP $8.00

Louise Dauth

Art and the Economy

Between the Clues Lies the Evidence

Exhibition review Suzanne Treister Post West Gallery 22 - 31 May 1992

Catherine Lumby

Art and the Economy

Metaphors of Mortality: Catherine Truman

Exhibition review Life Boat: Carvings by Catherine Truman Jam Factory Gallery South Australia 10 July - 9 August 1992

Susan Cochrane

Art and the Economy

The Fourth Side of the Triangle: Bronwyn Oliver

Exhibition review Bronwyn Oliver Artspace, Adelaide Festival Centre Adelaide, South Australia 29 May - 18 July 1992

Stephanie Radok

Art and the Economy

Uncertainly Thinking

Exhibition review Blink Contemporary Art Centre Adelaide May 1992

Catherine Lumby

Art and the Economy

Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees...

Exhibition review Backyards Exhibition Prospect Gallery 21 June - 12 July 1992

Jude Adams

Art and the Economy

Sites in Relation to Themselves

Exhibition review 42 Degrees South and 175 Degrees East Artspace, Adelaide Festival Centre 16 June - 1 August 2000

Richard Grayson

Art and the Economy

Putting in the Boot - Nicely

Exhibition review Do Something with a Blunstone Chameleon Gallery Hobart Tasmania

Peter Hill

Art and the Economy

A Belgian Artist's Work in Tasmania

Exhibition review Chantal Delrue: Recent Works Dick Bett Gallery Hobart, Tasmania February - March 1992

Gregory Kwok-Keung Leong

Art and the Economy