Australian Design
Issue 17:1 | March 1997
Examines the issues of art and design and looks at the practice within Australia in metal, furniture, ceramics, textiles, publishing, graphics landscape products etc. Do we have a sustainable future? Is there an Australian Design culture? Looks at courses which are available through different institutions. Reviews
In this issue
The & of Art & Design
The New Ecodesign: Sceptics Beware!
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Serious Fun
Book review Absolutely Mardi Gras
Jointly published by Doubleday and the Powerhouse Museum
1997
RRP $29.95
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
Seeing a Plant: Being a Plant
Exhibition review Stephanie Radok
Greenaway Gallery, Adelaide SA
11 September - 6 October 1996
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
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
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
Wanton Fruits
Exhibition review Barbie Kjar
Dick Bett Gallery,
Salamanca Place,
Hobart Tasmania
26 November - 10 December 1996
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
The Nature of Perception
Exhibition review Howard Taylor: Paintings and Drawings
Galerie Dusseldorf, Perth WA
1- 22 September 1996
Space Defined
Exhibition review Jewellery by Brenda Ridgewell,
New Collectibles Gallery,
East Fremantle WA
20 November - 1 December 1996