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Opinion

Craft in Parallels

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After the Parallels conference at the National Gallery of Victoria, I was left thinking about the broader context for crafts in Australia. The conference was initially set up as part of the National Craft Initiative,  a strategy put in place after the de-funding of Craft Australia to review what is needed by the craft sector in Australia. But naturally the event took on the interests of the host, which by charter seeks to grow its collection of unique and valuable art works.

Parallels seemed to be focused on the opportunities afforded for craft by collaborations with designers, who sell their work at international design fairs, such as Design Miami and Milan Furniture Fair. Figures like Wava Carpenter offered entre into these worlds through diverse forms of curation. The suggested strategy was to nurture these ‘facilitators’ who would help develop those international connections.

There’s no doubt that such markets help stimulate some extraordinary works, as was evident in the presentations by allied designers. Craft naturally benefits from patronage, whether it’s from monarchs, government or rich collectors. But the focus on this 1% of the 1% as direction for the Australian craft sector did seem rather narrow.

This came out in the Craft – The Australian Story symposium held the following Saturday. We heard then particularly about the other end of the spectrum – makers. Marcus Westbury, host of the ABC series Bespoke, talked about a continuum between the maker movement and studio crafts. Ramona Barry, soon to launch Craft Companion with co-author Rebecca Jobson, showed page shots that juxtaposed craft exhibition works with domestic production.

This led me to think about the different contexts in which studio craft finds itself. So I had a go at a mind map, which you can see above. I’m sure there are elements missing, don’t you think?

Studio craft is an art form that emerged post-war, along with art photography, to join the pantheon of visual arts. From the 1970s, it stood as an equal in the original Australia Council alongside visual arts, literature, music and dance. But from the 1990s it has gradually been subsumed into visual arts. Is this inevitable, or a failure of political nous?

It’s common now to hear the statement that craft is no longer a meaningful term. ‘What matters is whether it looks good!’ ‘Aren’t we over the old art/craft debate?’

Is that it? As a rusty Marxist, I tend to see this as a symptom of a consumerist society, which has lost touch with how goods are produced. For me, craft opens up the bigger picture. We don’t just as, as we would an art object, ‘What does it mean?’ We also ask, ‘How was it made, and by whom?’ We engage with an appreciation of skill, tradition and understanding of material.

But it was clear by the end of the Saturday symposium, led by the rousing Susan Cohn, that many thought craft in Australia needed to find its voice again. While our craft organisations work tirelessly for the sector, the voice of the grass-roots needs to be heard. This is a voice that asks for respect – respect for the special contribution that craftspersons make to our broader culture.

Thanks to the NGV for allowing us to hold the symposium and listing it as part of the Parallels program. Let’s hope it’s a sign of willingness to consider craft in its broader context – not just as an exotic back story, but also as a space for popular empowerment in a post-industrial world.

 

Opinion

What we can learn from the JMGA-NSW conference

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‘Tis the season of conferences and I’ve got four this month. Unfortunately, the Australian Ceramics Triennale and JMGA conferences clashed this time, so I had to dash from one to the other  (this may not have happened if Australia had a national craft organisation where this could have been noted early on).

I found the organisation of the JMGA-NSW jewellery conference in Sydney quite inspiring. Both the ceramics and jewellery conferences demonstrated the strong participation in studio craft. There were more than 400 at the ceramics conference and the auditorium in Sydney was full. But the jewellers certainly showed how to manage an event.

These were some highlights that raise the bar in conference organisation:

  • Clusters of exhibition openings scheduled on different evenings
  • Car pool stickers to help participants get to exhibition venues
  • Beaded conference tags subtly indicating registration stream
  • Delicious lunch alternatives with vegetarian options
  • Flower decorations
  • Billeting for interstate guests
  • Lawn diversions courtesy of Roseanne Bartley
  • Time for questions during each each session
  • Well-promoted hashtags: #edgesbordersgaps #jmgaconference2015
  • Offer of community announcements at conclusion

Of course, there’s always room for improvement. Some outside voices from allied domains could have opened up the conversation further. The odd cantankerous voice could also have added a little salt to the discussions.  There are some complex issues about the growth of post-object jewellery that could be teased out. And the issue of the global jewellery scene, prompted by the presence of Thai gallerist Atty Tantivit , could have been further explored.

To the challenge will now be continue this dialogue. Who will wear the JMGA crown next? Canberra, Melbourne, Auckland… They have a tough act to follow.

Opinion

Is That All There Is? A talk about exhibiting ceramics

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This talk was given by Robyn Phelan for the 2012 Australian Ceramics Triennale Conference, taking up the conference theme Subversive Clay. The following essay is the same talk, re-honed for an online readership.

Is that all there is? Should we expect more from an exhibition of ceramics than just the presentation of crafted objects? For the next 15 minutes I will be expressing observations about recent exhibitions, which have me pondering about how ceramics might be displayed to add deeper meaning and context to the work.

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There is nothing like a bit humour to make one be self-reflective. This Haefeli cartoon in the New Yorker made me consider all spent hours I have spent arranging, grouping, making families, creating belongings and relationship with my ceramic vessels. Perhaps you have lost hours to this pleasure too. But this compulsion to style raises a significant question for me. When presenting work to public and our peers is the relevance of our work only about what appears carefully placed on a plinth?

The balance of scale, colour, texture and all the other formal qualities of art are incredibly important for the impression of a balanced and harmonious exhibition. It is true that the culmination of our craft, is the work that we make and that this must be at the epicenter of an exhibition. But what greater reverberations of meanings and connections can a visitor take away from our exhibition? Can and should we ask of a plinth-based exhibition: Is that all there is? Haefeli’s cartoon reminded me of a particular project by our monarch of “table-scaping”. In 2004, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott was given full access to the ceramic storage which houses the collections of Charles Freer, donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1906. My fingers itch with desire if I imagine myself in Gwyn’s position. At the National Gallery of Victoria where I worked in collection management, the arranging of objects for permanent display is triumvirate collaboration of effort between curator, designer and installer. Gwyn alone created seven Parades for a permanent museum display freed from connection to maker, country, dynasty or technique. What inspiration might I apply to current installation practice from this project, where the maker only is responsible for its display?

One could apply this approach to a group exhibition where vessels are grouped by formal qualities: an idea, colour, texture or a proposition rather than by maker or making. The opportunity for collaborative curation is boundless. Gwyn’s groupings, released works from museum classification. Imagine an exhibition of new ceramic works alongside works that have inspired and influenced the maker.These muses might be the objects in your studio, gifts, childhood gismos, travel momento, fellow potters work. Melbourne jeweller, Sally Marsland casts vessels and modifies found objects. In her exhibition, Why are you like this and not like that? Sally brings together her crafted vessels, found objects and, delightfully, the coil pot that she had made in secondary school. It was enlightening to witness a continuum of vessel form that has informed her work over many years and remains a strong continuum across a body of work.

Ann Ferguson is a Victorian ceramicist who regularly works on projects with young children and is passionate about interactive experiences. Her 2010 solo show was at Pan Gallery. Along the side of the gallery was a table of pieces to play with. For Anne, play is the important action here, making a direct connection between the artworks, how the pieces interact with each other and how this desire to touch and arrange affects the viewer. Ann was also involved with The Housing Project, a community arts event, which evolved out of community workshops and audio aural recordings from the very diverse neighbourhood of Collingwood. In this work, people are invited to create their own urban soundscape by building a city using miniature ceramic houses, trees, tall buildings and factories. These objects trigger stored sounds and voices to create a multi-layered soundscape that evolves as the pieces are moved around, on or off the platform. I pondered how this complex designed event might inform an exhibition I might do? What I take away from this show is the possibility (if your work is sturdy and you are brave) is to make an exhibition that is totally hands on where the arrangement of work is ever changing. If you are a maker of functional ware, might your exhibition only exist when it is in use and in context? Claire McArdle’s is Melbourne based artist with training as a jeweller and her exhibition Public Displays of Attention, just keeps on giving. A professional photographer was employed to capture each poser. There was an incredible vibe because of the exhibition’s hands-on nature. Here Claire’s primary concern with the body, the exhibition’s title, the crafted silk pieces and the online presence combine in joyous perfection. How a piece of jewellery engages with the human body was crucial to the Public Displays of Attention experience for Claire and her curation of the exhibition is testament to this attention. Is the feel, weight and touch vital to the experience of your pottery or ceramics? How might we be able to record the experience of holding and caressing a work made of clay without ownership as part of the exhibition experience?

Yesterday, Clare Twomey outlined in detail her Trophy project. Her work casts a long and wonderfully challenging shadow of influence on our thinking about we can engage the visitor to our exhibitions.

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In the last six months, there has been a series of exhibitions where contemporary artists have been revelling in the use of clay without particularly paying attention or having a commitment to the ceramic process. I wish to discuss some of these shows because they have forced me to consider the material qualities of clay in a different way to how I would normally engage with an exhibition by a trained ceramicist.

Potters or ceramicists are part of a community of artists who have conquered the transformation of clay, so much so, that we rarely see the potential of the raw earthy stuff that is our beginnings. The flirtation with clay by Melbourne artist is a natural continuum of the last decade where contemporary artists have been using labour intensive skills or adopting the techniques of hobbyist or popular crafts.

Such terms as “hipster craft”, DIY craft come to mind. Ricky Swallow’s mount board architectural models at the 1999 Melbourne Biennial and Louise Weaver’s crochet works were some early forerunners of this approach to making.

Earlier in this conference we heard from Anton Reijnders about how people who are new to clay have a freedom of approach as they don’t know the problems of clay, are completely free and open to the material and don’t set limits to their work. Challenging for me is the low level of craft skill utilized by artists. However, what is inspiring is the honest embrace of material, technique and the desire to create a curated exhibition experience. What can I learn from these recent exhibitions? The Figure and Ground exhibition at Utopian Slumps in April 2012, hit this trend on its earthenware head. Quote from the catalogue essay:

The premise was to present artists who investigate the use of earthenware in contemporary art practices, particularly concerning intersections between ceramics and collage, the human figure and abstraction. The exhibition presents a curatorial interpretation of an archaeological dig by juxtaposing mounds of earth, lumps of clay and fossilised artifacts.

In response, to Sarah CrowEST and Sanne Mestrom’s work, I accepted that fired clay and found ornament could act as idea expanders, value provokers, be banal, hint at history, and force nostalgia to bubble to the surface.

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Rebecca Delange’s talisman-like sculptures urged me to meditate on unfired clay as prop, glue, plinth or stuff.
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The next exhibition to challenge how ceramics can be presented in a gallery context, was at Craft Victoria earlier this year by Perth based potter, Jacob Ogden Smith entitled Pottery Practice Project. In Figure and Ground I relished being reminded that primary clay can be the superstar, Pottery Practice Project, Ogden Smith presents the clay process and ceramic maker as star of the show. It included video of the artist’s flicking of his long hair, attacking the surface of his freshly thrown work in a death-metal, dance-like engagement. A second video recorded his body being tattooed with a Bernard Leach kick wheel. Like a reality television show, we are never quite sure what is true motivation or construct. Kirsten Perry’s exhibition opened yesterday (September 2012 at Lowrise Projects). It is an ode to Fleetwood Mac’s album Dreams.  Here emotional attachment to naively made forms, hark back to first touches on clay that is earnest and unskilled. Perry shuns highly crafted outcomes for the sake of nostalgic effect. And to return to whence I started, the grouping of ceramic objects. Sydney trained but Melbourne based ceramic artist Leah Jackson dreamily suspends or floats on fragile trestles, hand-pinched vessels alongside clay-made things and fragments. An Epic Romance (Craft Victoria, September 2012) consisted of four contained assemblages. Looking at each atmospheric vignette I became conscious of how my viewing of the work was being manipulated from every angle and aspect. Each still life whispered, ‘take me home I am perfectly styled and framed in every way’.

Is this too Vogue Living? Too controlled? Honestly, I enjoyed being romanced.

Note to the reader, August 2014: The parting image presented at the Subversive Clay Conference was that of a single object on plinth. To reverse the provocation of the talk given, I reminded listeners that the eloquence of a singular statement can be striking and the language of the Modernist white cube amp; white plinth allows the viewer the space and quietude to reflect on a work. The above image is of a black glaze porcelain bowl by Prue Venables. Then director Kevin Murray, devoted the entire Craft Victoria space to this work for just one day in 2003. To ask of an exhibition, is that is there is? Sometimes it is suffice to give the answer yes.

Robyn Phelan is a Melbourne based ceramicist who graduated from RMIT in 2010. She also writes, an educator and an enthusiast about craft. Her talk reflects her professional past as a secondary visual arts teacher, her work with exhibitions and objects while working at Museum Victoria, the National Gallery of Victoria and Craft Victoria.

Opinion

The view on craft from the West–for Form’s sake

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The Western Australian craft and design organisation Form has just released a publication New Narratives for Craft: Balancing Risk, Opportunity, Skill, Experimentation that seeks to chart a course for craft in the continent’s largest state. It’s a welcome addition to the nation’s discussion about the state of craft, reminding us how rare it is to find a platform for this kind of discussion after the loss of Craft Australia. It’s particularly pleasing to see it coming from Form, which was one of the organisations that emerged from the corporatisation of craft infrastructure at the end of the 20th century. This involved moving away from the membership model towards broader opportunities for growth. At the time, Form seemed to identify itself against craft, as a redundant subsidised model based on individual expression rather than market and audience needs. Since making the break with studio craft, under the inspiring leadership of Linda Dorrington, Form has realised some epic ventures, such as Canning Stock Route Project, that have re-defined the limits of possibility for an arts organisation. So it’s particularly significant that they now return to the craft conversation. We have a lot to learn from them.

New Narratives for Craft aims to articulate the role for craft in Western Australia. As such, it is quite a sobering tale. Elisha Buttler outlines the challenges of craft, including the need to connect elite practitioners with community and to combat the sense of isolation. Travis Kelleher’s reflection on craft education tells a depressing tale of closures in most of the craft courses in the state. The failure of the Western Australian government to take up the opportunity of the Midland Atelier is a real tragedy. The positive picture is provided by Paul McGillick’s profiles of Helen Britton and Penelope Forlano, which provides models of engagement developed by two leading individual practitioners. But in the end, it’s hard to deduce from the publication what a future path might be for craft in the west.

Much space is given to promoting Form’s achievements. Few would dispute these, but it does make the publication seem more of a marketing exercise than an industry analysis. The cost of corporatising craft in Australia has been a focus on internal marketing, which fails to speak for a broader community. The stellar rise of Critical Craft Forum in the US has shown how quickly a sector can embrace a forum that speaks with a broad voice.

One glaring absence from the publication is reference to the broader West Australian scene. As the dominant economic and cultural force in the state, it seems important to mention the impact of mining. The decline in craft resources that is charted by this publication should prompt some reflection on the costs of extractivism. The radical loss of manufacturing and the fear that Australia is no longer a country that ‘makes things’ does put craft at the centre of an important national debate.

Nevertheless, warm congratulations to Form for a welcome entry into the conversation. But now you’re here, we need your help in facing up to important questions of our time:

  • Can craft practitioners adopt emerging forms of social practice in order to recognise the value in community participation?
  • How can we focus national attention on the costs to our culture in too great a reliance on mining for future prosperity?
  • In what way can we use craft to strengthen our connections in the Asia Pacific region?
Opinion, Texts

What to make of 2014

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Master batik artist Tony Dyer with a young Japanese textile student at the Semarang International Batik Festival in May 2013

Master batik artist Tony Dyer with a young Japanese textile student at the Semarang International Batik Festival in May 2013

One of the major events of 2014 will be the Golden Jubilee of the World Crafts Council, which will be held in Dongyan, China, 18-22 October. It will be very interesting to see how the Chinese presidency of WCC uses this unique occasion to promote local craftsmanship. One day ‘Made in China’ may be something that actually adds value to a product.

The China event will be an important occasion to present the Code of Practice for Partnerships in Craft & Design, which has been developed over the past three years of discussions that were part of Sangam: Australia India Design Platform. We’ll be developing a platform based around those standards to promote fair partnerships between producers and developers. This year, the network will extend to Indonesia, with a workshop at Kampoeng Semarang looking particularly at commissioning of batik artists.

One of the important elements that draws me to craft is the way it engages with tradition. While the modern world encourages freedom, it is hard to conceive of a meaningful life without responsibility. Custodianship gives meaning to our otherwise fleeting lives. And craft traditions require skill and imagination if that are to be something we can pass on to future generations. This involves interpreting traditions through current concerns. As they say, we make it new, again.

This is something quite evident to indigenous peoples, whose own culture is vulnerable to colonisation. Retaining language and custom gives purpose and honour to individual lives in indigenous communities.

By contrast, the dominant white Anglo world seems to require little from us in order to flourish. It runs increasingly on automatic, sustained by machines and global corporations. But there are still buried traditions that we can uncover and pass on. Colonisation involved removing the social value from objects, otherwise considered the primitive domain of fetish or idol. The challenge is to recover social objects such as charms, crowns, garlands and heirlooms that offer a hard currency of interconnection.

Amulets from the Sonara Market in Mexico City - how to turn objects of destruction into agents of good?

Amulets from the Sonara Market in Mexico City - how to turn objects of destruction into agents of good?

The project Joyaviva: Live Jewellery across the Pacific travels to Latin America this year. It will be very interesting to see how these audiences respond to the challenge of designing a modern amulet. Can folk traditions transcend their nostalgia and become relevant elements of contemporary life?

The broader questions associated with this will be played out in a series of roundtables as part of the South Ways  project. This will seek to identify creative practices that are unique to the South. The first one in Wellington will look at the relevance of the Maori ‘power object’, or taonga, to Western art practices such as relational jewellery.

Other projects will help tie these threads together. The performance work Kwality Chai will explore what an Indianised Australia might be like. This relates to the utopia of Neverland, in which Australia becomes a haven for cultures that have no home in the world, such as Sri Lankan Tamils.

Craft keeps us alive to the debt we owe to previous generations. I’m very pleased to be involved with Wendy Ger’s Taiwan Ceramics Biennale where many artists have mastered clay as a language for the unique expression of ideas and values.

So there’s much to be made of 2014. Let’s hope this includes a future for 2015 and beyond.

Opinion

Postscript on Indian contemporary jewellery

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Amman Rashid necklace (2011) Kingfisher beer bottle cap, lotus seed beads, glass beads, copper wire, cotton thread and carnelian agate, approx 14 inches, photo: Anil Advani

Amman Rashid necklace (2011) Kingfisher beer bottle cap, lotus seed beads, glass beads, copper wire, cotton thread and carnelian agate, approx 14 inches, photo: Anil Advani

This is an update to an article that I wrote for Art Jewelry Forum The DIT (Do It Themselves) Movement In Indian Contemporary Jewelry. In it I mentioned the work of the Bangladesh jeweller, Amman Rashid:

The Bangladeshi jeweler Amman Rashid would seem a more conventional candidate for contemporary jewelry. He sources materials from a broad range of cultural sources, including ink pots, trade beads, hookah parts, old brass seals, old cutlery, and old broken pottery pieces. Each work is unique and has its own name, such as Chiroshokha, Krishnobott, Kanchon, Protnotattik, and Aadibashi. There is no gallery for his work, and he has never heard of contemporary jewelry. He frames the work himself under the concept Aadi, which means “beginning” in Sanskrit. His work fits the studio model, and he is keen for international exposure. Can we imagine a Bangladeshi in Munich?

Above is an image of his work that is missing from the article.

Since then, I’ve also heard from the Indian jeweller Eina Ahluwalia, who I wrote about in a previous AJF article. She gives a little more background to her workshop conditions. She has three teams of artisans who have their own workshops and work on contract. There are occasions when the teams introduce their own ideas into the design process. The way she operates, the price is fixed by the craftsperson. For Eina, is it important that their interests are served for the long term survival of skills:

It is imperative that we make the trade monetarily worthwhile for the artisans to keep the craftsmanship alive. We need to compensate them for their unbelievable skills, their patience, perseverance and enable them to live the lives they wish for themselves and their families, or else they will leave the trade.

Let’s hope we see more of the work by jewellers like Eina and Amman in the future. They have much to give to the contemporary jewellery field.

Opinion

Craftsmen and women of Australia, give us a hand.

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Installation from the exhibition String Theory, Museum of Contemporary Art, until 27 October 2013

Installation from the exhibition String Theory, Museum of Contemporary Art, until 27 October 2013

Craftspersons have a privileged role to interpret the land Australians have been gifted – turning earth into ceramics, metal into jewellery, wool into textiles, trees into furniture and sand into glass. It’s a sign something meaningful can be made from good fortune, rather than just ship it offshore as raw material.

As a studio practice, crafts share many interests in common with the visual arts sector. These include support for Australia Council funding, artist fees and government procurement. But there are differences. Given the reduced secondary market, re-sale royalties are not that relevant. The decline of the TAFE sector is a special concern, but that is largely for state governments.

It’s the bigger picture that matters. Federal government needs to address the way Australia has been left behind in support for crafts. While here Craft Australia has been de-funded, Crafts Council UK and American Craft Council continue to play significant roles, producing magazines, television programs and national strategies.

Why have we fallen behind? While there are specific factors in play, the mining boom hasn’t helped. The ‘Dutch curse’, where resource richness causes decline in production, doesn’t inspire the making spirit. Why make things ourselves when a strong dollar brings in cheap imports? An important role of government is to honour individual creative resilience against the tide of economic expedience.

LNP – not conservative enough

LNP have been generally good for the arts. The Visual Arts Craft Strategy gave the sector an unparalleled burst of confidence. But they miss an opportunity to champion crafts in particular.

LNP is not conservative enough. A conservative party would speak to the importance of preserving culture and common traditions, such as craft skills. While this may not include contemporary practice, at least it acknowledges the worthiness of spending 10,000 hours learning your craft. The UK Conservative Party came to power with clear support for crafts in all guises. The Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey opened the national crafts conference claiming that ‘Craft is front and centre of our cultural thinking’.

In the recent policy launch, George Brandis championed art for art’s sake, rather than for instrumental ends such as nation building. He argued for a ‘self-confidence’ in arts, which means support for ‘international repertoire’ rather than the ‘cultural cringe’ of local content. This argument could easily be reversed: a truly confident culture produces new work of its own.

While the commitment to re-establish the Australian International Cultural Council is welcome, Brandis focuses on ‘the great classical works and artistic movements which have shaped and defined Western civilisation’, suggesting a limited creative dialogue with our region.

ALP – lacking a common story

The ALP comes to the election with the national cultural policy Creative Australia as a feather in its cap. This includes continued support for the Art Start program, which has particular relevance to graduates seeking to establish craft workshops.

How does Creative Australia fare on the election trail? Tony Burke’s policy launch was very general and lacked strategy, but at least he spoke about the role that arts play in ‘telling our stories’. It’s a shame this is not supported upstairs. On his return to leadership, Kevin Rudd repeated the call for Australia to ‘remain a country that actually makes things.’ But this translated into subsidies for overseas car manufacturers, rather than a narrative of pride in local capacity.

Historically, ALP identified itself as a nation-builder. Whitlam’s rallying call, ‘Men and women of Australia’, evoked a collective interest in the shared benefits of public infrastructure. Today, policies are framed to appease specific interest groups, especially the embattled ‘working family’, rather than contributing to a common national purpose.

Greens – big potential, but lost in detail

The Greens lack a substantial policy like Creative Australia, but some of their election promises are relevant to crafts. The aim to reverse recent government cuts to universities will have an indirect benefit in supporting the academics whose teaching and publishing make a valuable contribution to the craft ecology. In particular, the aim to restore TAFE will have a tangible benefit, though their capacity to implement this from Canberra is dubious.

Strangely Christine Milne’s policy launch in Darwin focused on support for regional arts, playing the game of courting sectional interests rather than evoking a common story. Support for crafts could so easily resonate with their argument for our responsible custodianship of nature.

Still, it is worth remembering that the only public concern expressed about the demise of Craft Australia came from the Greens. In 15/2/12, Christine Milne raised this issue at the Senate Estimates Committee. She spoke to the concerns about the implications for Australia’s place in the region. The incoming President of the Worlds Crafts Council from China was arriving in Australia with a large delegation, but found there was no matching national body to greet them. While government obviously takes the Asian Century seriously, it lets slip this critical point of contact with our region, confirming the worst regional stereotypes of our cultural insensitivity.

We all need a good cuppa

Overall, the parties miss an opportunity to champion crafts as part of the Australian story. What the crafts need is a broader vision of our capacity as a nation to make something meaningful from the riches the continent has provided. This entails recognition of the crafts as an essential pillar in our cultural life.

Recently, independents Xenophon and Madigan (DLP) purchased from their own funds a new Australian-made 750-piece crockery service for federal parliament. Major parties should drink from that cup.

This piece was commissioned by the National Association of the Visual Arts as part of their 2013 election coverage.

Opinion

Jewellery for you, me and them

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Participation and Exchange (Brisbane, 12-14 July 2013) was the 15th JMGA conference since 1980. 33 years of sustained dialogue around contemporary jewellery is a remarkable achievement for relatively small population on the other side of the world to the main centres. The relative lack of collectors compared to the USA and Europe means that artists more often fall back on ideas to support their practice.

According to organisers, the theme was chosen ‘to reflect the changing focus of contemporary practice, from sole practitioner to collective participation and crossing boundaries’. The program included a diverse sample of relational projects from Australasia and Europe.

Particularly energetic were the mobile collectives of jewellers without a dedicated workshop. This included Blacksmith Doris presented by Mary Hackett as a fiercely contested space where women could come together to learn and master blacksmithing. Not so hands on, but still productive, Christine Scott-Young described the activities of Part B that make a space for experimental public engagement outside the gallery walls.

Tricia Flanagan from Hong Kong helped place participation in the context of social practice in the visual arts. As an information platform, the focus was more on the making process than the exchange of objects. Preserved Fish linked communities that share a common involvement in the fishing industry. And broad project Peripatetic Institute for Praxiology and Anthropology (PIPA) engages in ‘conspicuous moderation’ by gathering local craft skills from bricoleurs and tinkerers. It was important to have this broader context for the discussion of participation in jewellery.

Scene from Tricia Flanagan's PIPA project, collecting craft skills

Scene from Tricia Flanagan's PIPA project, collecting craft skills

Laura Bradshaw Heap spoke about her projects involving communities of women – Bosnian survivors and Irish ‘travellers’ (Roma). Her practice involved partnering with a community for ethnographic purposes, teaching them some basic jewellery techniques in exchange for information that she could then use in her own work. It was salutary to hear about her initial offer to teach jewellery to the Irish participants was rebuffed in favour of experiences, like cooking and museum visits. This precluded the possibility of including their work in the final exhibition – an exercise of free choice rather than exclusion. True exchange is impossible to pre-determine. It would have been good to hear more about the interest that Laura Bradshaw Heap brought to the exchange, particularly as initiator. There is an implied concern for displaced women – could this be developed further so that the Irish and Bosnian participants might connect?

Image from Laura Bradshaw Heap's 'This is me' project; photo: Jennika Argent

Image from Laura Bradshaw Heap's 'This is me' project; photo: Jennika Argent

The Australian jeweller Roseanne Bartley offered a sophisticated and critical take on participation in her Seeding the Cloud project where she takes groups in different locations through the streets gathering plastic remnants that are then made into a necklace. The results are quite a diverse mix of forms and colours, which Bartley related back to the work of David Turnbull, a sociologist of science who considers the role of craft practice in creating a social fabric. Bartley raised a critical question about the nature of the social that is implied in relational jewellery.

Given the diversity of participatory paradigms, Kirsten D’Agostino’s taxonomy of collective practices was welcome. Naturally, New Zealand figured strongly as the origin of engaging new models, such as Broach of the Month Club. But this taxonomy is relatively academic without a critical framework.

The critical context for contemporary jewellery is itself in development. As a field, it seems to reward originality that reflects new aspects of the jewellery form, whether in materials or use. If this new practice of relational jewellery were to take on the critical framework of participatory art, as outlined by Claire Bishop in her book Artificial Hells, then it is likely to be riven between the competing claims of morality and freedom. For Bishop, participator art is on the one hand about filling the gaps left by privatisation and on the other a matter of exposing contradictions in our preconceptions of community. The kind of participation implied by the conference presentations were more likely the former – to fill the gaps left over in modernity.

This leads to one of the critical questions not really addressed in the conference – what kind of community does relational jewellery seek to constitute? The democratic impulse within contemporary jewellery follows the path of political movements that seek to exchange the franchise. In this sense, participation that only involves other jewelers is relatively limited. How might participation engage people who might otherwise never meet, from different parts of the world?

We didn’t have far to look. Internationally, the JMGA conference was remarkable from the number of New Zealanders, both speaking and listening. Peter Decker’s opening keynote was book-ended by Alan Preston’s evocative account of Fingers 40 year history on the last day, joined on stage at the end by all the Kiwis to sing a traditional mia. It was a touching trans-Tasman moment to remind us how powerful this dialogue across the ditch has been.

One of the real surprises came from the other side of Australia – the Indian Ocean. Helena Bugucki told of her work premised on the fantasy of being shipwrecked near Geraldton and having to make work from what’s at hand, in dialogue with a local Aboriginal man. And to the north, Alison Stone presented a paper about her experience working with a British NGO who runs jewellery workshops in Nepal. The adventure of both projects was admirable, but they didn’t provide a critical reflection on what their own role was in this situation. The principle of reciprocity seems a critical element in participation, whether it is the Aboriginal perspective on settler jewellery or Nepalese own craft traditions.

There’s a lot more to be said about participation and exchange in jewellery. The recent interest in the ‘gift economy’ brings us back to the rituals of exchange in precious objects. There are perspectives from anthropology, sociology and more recently Actor Network Theory that offer frameworks for understanding the value of the precious object in a contemporary context.

Participation and Exchange has placed all this on the agenda, which is exactly what you expect from a JMGA conference. We now have to find a forum to work through this agenda.

And the next one? The region beyond the Tasman Sea is calling. Australia is well placed to extend this conversation into the emerging contemporary jewellery scenes in Thailand, Indonesia, China and India.

Opinion

Designed by Apple in California, but where is it made?

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I opened up The Age newspaper today (yes, the dead tree version), to find a double spread promoting ‘Designed by Apple in California’.

Newspaper advertisement 1 July 2013

Newspaper advertisement 1 July 2013

It’s the picture of divine innocence. A young girl lying in bed bathed in light from a tablet she holds above her. The accompanying text reflects on the ‘experience of the product’ and the discipline exercised by ‘engineers, artists, craftsmen and inventors’ to ensure that Apple products enhance that experience.

The latest Apple advertising campaign involves a commitment to sign its products ‘Designed by Apple in California’.

There are two elements worth noting in this attribution.

First, it specifies California rather than USA. With the upcoming Steve Jobs biopics, this may be to draw on the romance of free-wheeling Silicon Valley as a cradle of digital invention. It potentially helps counter with any resentment at US monopolies on soft and hardware patents.

Second, it is more common to identify where a product is made, rather than designed. The question of where Apple products are made has been the source of some anxiety, as it has been revealed these treasured devices involve considerable exploitation of workers in Southern China.

It’s about design, not manufacture. Design takes on the responsibility of production by becoming a craft, a focused exercise towards the achievement of a singular goal.

Control is everything to Apple. Compared to other platforms, it strictly regulates access to its system by other hardware or software providers. Its power is to say ‘no’. While a quintessential feature of modernist design, this control can come at the expense of serendipity, when bold invention comes from trusting in chance.

Apple says no. One of the richest corporations in the world has no featured philanthropic program. Now it attempts to repress the nature of its outsourcing of manufacture. Can they really call themselves craftsmen?

Opinion

No such thing as a free football–we need to defend ‘made in India’

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Headline from the Age newspaper in Grand Final week

Headline from the Age newspaper in Grand Final week

The iconic Australian football manufacturer Sherrin has been forced to withdraw its half a million footballs, after it was discovered they were sewn by poor children in India.

With maximal impact, the scandal broke in Fairfax media at the beginning of Grand Final weekend. Despite safeguards and standards of corporate social responsibility, it was revealed that children in the slums of Jalandhar in the Punjab are paid as little as 12 cents an hour. At the same time, they experience damaging side effects including septic fingers, allergies and back problems. More importantly, they also lose the opportunity to gain an education and escape poverty.

The follow up story at the beginning of the week reported that a young boy Dylan Ferlano had found a needle in an Auskick football. This prompted Sherrin CEO Chris Lambert to withdraw all the footballs to the coast of $1 million.

From a global perspective it’s a salutary tale. Footy is one of our most sacred institutions. The oval ball is an object around which we celebrate noble Aussie virtues of mateship, guts and reconciliation. Yet even here, the snaking supply chain of globalisation finds its way in, taking away our otherwise innocent enjoyment. In this case, it literally pricks out conscience. It’s similar to the scandal associated with worker suicides at the Foxconn factories that produce the iPhone.

This is not a new story. The tale reinforces the colonial perspective on the Third world that was so masterfully captured in Joseph Conrad’s depiction of Congo’s rubber plantations in Heart of Darkness—‘the horror, the horror.’ The immediate response is to cease supporting the operation and hope it closes down. Bit the Sherrin football scandal has the potential to taint other products made in India by association.

Without diminishing the shame of child labour, the Sherrin scandal does reveal the strength of craft skill in contemporary India. While we might see it as drudgery, there are at least 20 million Indian adults who take pride in their capacity to made beautiful objects by hand. The techniques of block-printing, hand-weaving and natural dyes are becoming increasingly rare and sought after.

Artisans of Fashion display in Strand Arcade, Sydney

Artisans of Fashion display in Strand Arcade, Sydney

At the same time that ‘made in India’ is vilified in Melbourne, it is being celebrated in Sydney. From late winter, the Artisans of Fashion program has been promoting the craft skills of India. Australia’s top fashion designers feature in parades and exhibitions centred in the city’s Strand Arcade. Billboards around Sydney featuring waif like models set against a backdrop of vibrant colourful India.

Far from demonising hand production, the key aim of Artisans of Fashion is to help it survive. According to its founder Carline Poiner , ‘Once a generation stops using a particular technique, it is lost.’

Increasingly, Australian designers are going to India to take advantage of these skills. And it’s more about quality than profit margin. In the case of that other iconic sport, the Melbourne design Simone Le Amon has made a career out of partnership with an Indian cricket ball manufacturer, who provides offcuts for her ‘A good sport’ bracelets.

Set in Sydney’s design precinct of Surry Hills, Planet is one of the many upmarket outlets which is increasing amount of product that is made in India. For owner Ross Longmuir, making things for others is a long-standing practice in India, ‘Traditional hand craft skills in India go back centuries for export production and are spectacularly good’. Longmuir is even planning to set up a second home in India to focus more on local production.

Rather than pull out of India, Longmuir recommends that Sherrin set up education subsidies for female children in these communities. ‘And for this not to be a token move, I would suggest that Sheridan executives should visit India and get involved directly with this project and that there should be a follow up of results.’

For many Australians, involvement in India is not just a matter of getting stuff made cheaply. They have an interest in long-term benefits. Designer Carole Douglas helped in the reconstruction of Ahmedabad after the earthquake. Funds from Artisans of Fashion go to towards supporting an orphanage in Jaipur.

We’ve become increasingly dependent on the skills of people from countries like India. They make our clothes, build our gadgets, answer our telephones, administer our finances and code our software. Returning footballs, even in such quantity, is not going to stem our increasing dependence on the work of others.

Certainly, it is important to develop strong codes of practice and workable auditing procedures. But in the end, it will come down to the consumer to accept that we have to pay more for what we use. There’s no such thing as a free football.