Friday 21 June 2013

Towards a post-consumer subjectivity: a future for the crafts in the twenty first century?

Towards a post-consumer subjectivity: a future for the crafts in the twenty first century?
By Peter Hughes


‘Craftivism’ in action: Marianne Joergensen’s Pink M.24 Chaffee is a collaborative project incorporating knitted squares from hundreds of contributors. craft+design enquiry journal issue 3, 2011

A shorter version of this paper was presented at the international conference Making Futures: the Crafts in the Context of Emerging Global Sustainability Agendas at the Plymouth College of Art and Design, UK, September 2009 and published on the conference website at http://makingfutures.plymouth.ac.uk/journalvol1/papers.php#critical-perspectives.

Peter Hughes has been Curator of Decorative Arts, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery since 1999. He received a Bachelor of Education (Art) from the City Art Institute (now COFA/UNSW) in 1986 and subsequently studied furniture design (Centre for the Arts, University of Tasmania). In 1995 he received a Master of Art (Research) in Art Theory from the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University for a thesis interpreting John Ruskin’s writing about design, society and the natural world from a unifying ecological perspective. Peter continues to be interested in links between ecological philosophy, our relationship with ‘objects’ generally and the crafts as a political and social as well as artistic field of practice.

Abstract: The crafts movement has a long history of engagement with both environmental and ethical issues. In recent years, several movements have emerged—in response to environmental issues and in opposition to the dominance of the monoculture produced by globalising capitalism— that have powerful resonances with some of the crafts movement’s early political and ethical heritage. As environmental issues move into the mainstream, a rising tide of concern presents an opportunity for the crafts movement to renew its engagement with social, political and philosophical issues and to contribute both to the debate and to the formation of a sustainable material and creative culture of the future. Read complete paper

Full paper published in craft + design enquiry; Issue 3, 2011 Sustainability in craft and design

Image caption: ‘Craftivism’ in action: Marianne Joergensen’s Pink M.24 Chaffee is a collaborative project incorporating knitted squares from hundreds of contributors. As a protest against the Danish (and the American and British) involvement in the war in Iraq, a World War II tank was covered from canon to caterpillar tracks with squares of knitted and crocheted pink yarn. The 15 x 15 cm squares were knitted by people from many European countries and the USA. The process of covering the tank was documented in a video shown at the Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Denmark as part of the exhibition “TIME” from April 27 to June 4 2006.

Monday 17 June 2013

FORTHCOMING ISSUE - NO. 5 DUE OUT IN AUGUST

Tokyo Void,  A World in Making: Cities Craft Design craft design enquiry journal  No 5

The fifth issue of craft + design enquiry,  "Worlds In Making: Cities Craft Design" is edited by Suzie Attiwill.   This issue explores the intersect between craft and design and the urban environment. Due out in August 2013 and can be downloaded or printed on demand at:   
ANU E Press
 

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Listening when others ‘talk back’


Listening when others ‘talk back’
By Kay Lawrence
 
April 2001. Doug Nicholls with ring tree, Swan Hill Museum craft+design enquiry issue 1
 
 
Kay Lawrence is a visual artist working in textiles and former Head of the South Australian School of Art, University of South Australia. Her work in community tapestry and as designer of the Parliament House Embroidery, installed in the Great Hall of Parliament House in 1988, activated her interest in how communities express their relationship to place through story and art making. A continuing thread in her practice as an artist and writer on contemporary Australian textiles practice has been the ‘unsettling’ legacy of white settlement on Indigenous Australians and their land.

Abstract: This paper addresses the ethics of inter-cultural collaborative art practice from an Australian perspective, through examining aspects of the project, Weaving the Murray. Anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose in her recent book, Reports from a Wild Country; ethics for decolonisation (2005) notes the legacy of white settler society in Australia, claiming that ‘We cannot help knowing that we are here through dispossession and death’ (Rose 2005, p.6). This is a shocking proposition and an uncomfortable position for white Australians. Yet to ignore this reality is to concede to the continuation of a present violence against Indigenous Australians. This is perhaps not now enacted through dispossession and death, but through another type of violence that sets the past aside and ignores the ‘vulnerability of others.’ (Roth 1999, p.5) 
 
Abstract from Listening when other 'talk back' by Kay Lawrence
Full paper published in craft + design enquiry; Issue 1, 2009, Migratory Practices

Call for Papers closing soon: issue 6 2014

Current Calls for Papers for issue #6, 2014 
Closing June 30 2013. Now Closed 
Read more

About OPEN section for papers

From issue 6, 2014, craft + design enquiry will include  a new OPEN section. Submissions to the OPEN section for this issue close soon -  on 30 June 2013.

The OPEN section enables craft + design enquiry to publish research papers on any subject within the general subject area of contemporary craft and deisgn research. Submissions to the OPEN section are selected and peer-reviewed. Research authors are encouraged to use the journal as a publishing platform for papers in their own areas of research interest within this general subject area.  

Tuesday 4 June 2013

Outsourcing the hand: An analysis of craft-design collaborations across the global divide

Outsourcing the hand: An analysis of craft-design collaborations across the global divide
By Kevin Murray 

Sarah Thorn for WorldWeave, Acrobat Cushion, 2009, wool felt, hand
embroidered.
Photograph: James Widdowsen, craft+design enquiry journal



Abstract: This paper identifies a growing trend in contemporary craft practice which involves outsourcing handmade processes to artisans in poorer countries. To evaluate this process, it reviews three case studies: Sara Thorns Worldwide Weave in India, Polly&Me in Pakistan, and Martina Dempf in Rwanda. Each enables different levels of creative collaboration with traditional artisans. While a critical framework is able to be established, there is still a lack of information that comes directly from the artisans themselves. Read complete paper

Abstract from: An analysis of craft-design collaborations across the global divide
by Kevin Murray
Full paper published in craft + design enquiry; Issue 2, 2010, Cross cultural exchanges in craft and design