20 Aug 2008
Article - 22.05.2007
Emily Howes reports on the recent Smart works symposium, held at the Powerhouse Museum.
It is an intimidating task to capture the Smart works symposium within the scope of an article. Indeed it is impossible and this is necessarily a single, incomplete perspective. The assembled attendees, including practitioners, educators, advocates, writers, manufacturers and miscellaneous others, heard dozens of stories over the three days and witnessed as many again in the related exhibition, which ultimately seemed to thicken into bigger narrative altogether.
Grace Cochrane, Smart works: design and the handmade curator, convenor, creator, introduced the symposium with the recognition that we’re living in a changing world. Craft and design (and everything else) are in the process of being forever altered by unbridled technological advances. She asked: what are the implications of this? How will ways of manufacture, of doing business, selling, and the role of the handmade alter in the future?
Fittingly for a freewheeling world, it was a non-designer who addressed the symposium first. Economics broadcaster Peter Day responded to Cochrane’s questions with reference to the changing economic framework wrought by the rise of the internet. We are, as he pointed out, on the edge of a new kind of capitalism, one where consumer sets the terms of the exchange. With BBC-perfect rolling vowels and lucid verbal imagery, he described the new world order: customisation, rampant blog-based commentary, mini-business made viable through eBay, 'back-label narratives'. To capture the concept, he quoted the founder of the now deceased search engine excite.com, Joe Kraus: 'Customers don’t want a choice, they want exactly what they want.' This new regime spells doom for old-fashioned businesses that can’t or won’t accommodate the demands of the new generation of consumers. However, the growing desire for authenticity poses unprecedented opportunities for the crafts in particular. To his audience of craft insiders, he concluded: 'This is probably your century if you want to take it.'
It was during Day’s talk that we first heard the phrase 'the China price', a concept that many others would reiterate. Practitioners particularly, whose professional narratives were scattered throughout the symposium, acknowledged China’s influence on their work. Some, such as industrial designer Jon Goulder and ceramicist Janet de Boos, have embraced Chinese manufacturing as a means to reduce the cover price of their products and open up newly viable creative avenues. De Boos also had the opportunity to dramatically expand her market. Both took pains to educate and collaborate with the factory workers, and their work developed to explore this new frontier. Their descriptions of the working conditions were very different from the caricatured sweatshop that too readily springs to mind. Similarly, Pamille Berg related positive stories of contracting a Chinese factory to translate Ernabella Arts’s distinctive batik designs into hand-knotted floor rugs. Ernabella’s indigenous artists developed relationships with the factory workers, exchanging photographs of one another at work.
Some practitioners, however, emphatically reject China and go to lengths to keep their manufacturing local. Furniture and lighting designer David Trubridge argued strongly against the China option on moral grounds. He pointed out that along with exporting money, intellectual property and skills, we’re also exporting the associated environmental problems. As coal powerhouses continue to proliferate, natural disasters and health problems will increasingly claim people’s lives and, he said, it will be our lifestyle that killed them. He posited a future scenario where email, not aircraft or container ships, becomes a means of export. With electronically transmitted plans, goods could be manufactured closer to their ultimate destinations.
Several designers, Trubridge included, maintained that offshore production is not desirable for them because contact with materials is pivotal to their practice. For Robert Foster of F!NK & Co, China is neither financially viable nor creatively desirable, as it denies him the necessary quality control and opportunities for hands-on material exploration. Oliver Smith spoke of the 'magic' unity of handcrafting and machine production when making his distinctive cutlery, each process enriching the other. Among the interesting fallout from Smart Works is the case of Marc Harrison who was torn between outsourcing and establishing his own factory to produce his unique bakelite-like resin made from macadamia husks. Influenced by testimonials from such self-manufactures as Foster, Trubridge and Stephen Ormandy from Dinosaur Designs, Harrison has since made the gutsy decision to establish a factory of his own and embrace the opportunities (and limitations) that this provides.
Supplementing the conversations surrounding China were recurrent themes regarding the handcrafts’ capacity to rehabilitate and empower communities. Kirsten Ainsworth and Cathy Braid of fashion label Caravana travelled to northern Pakistan’s Chitral Valley to harness the embroidery skills of local women and provide employment opportunities. In this extraordinarily remote setting, sandwiched between the volatile regions of Kashmir and Afghanistan, the place Osama Bin Laden goes to hide, Ainsworth and Braid crafted their first collection. Their success not only exceeded their expectations but also the capacity of the local infrastructure, notably with Braid opting to trek in the snow over a mountain pass to deliver orders rather than trust a courier. The embroiderers gained an income and independence, and Caravana, meanwhile, discovered that there is a strong market for products with such integrity.
Alexander Lotersztain shared his experiences working with traditional craftspeople in developing countries, helping them create products amenable to the western marketplace and thus cultivating sustainable industries. Geoff Crispin and Pamille Berg related the story behind the distinctive ceramics and textiles of Ernabella Arts, which generate much-needed funds for this remote indigenous community, including financing specialist medical equipment. On the subject of economic sustainability, Ernabella’s decision to price their rugs to match the cost of ordinary carpeting is admittedly hard to understand. Those who invest in an Ernabella rug are unlikely to be doing so on the basis of cost. The rugs are exquisite, spirited, unique and of superior production quality, and goodness knows the artists and community could use the funds. Surely then, rather than comparing rug with rug, we should be comparing art with art and multiply the price by a factor of ten at least.
There is an altruistic role for the machine-made too. Trubridge and Foster extend their societal reach through mentoring young and emerging designers, sharing their expertise and studios, and helping them to progress their work to the marketplace. Professor Kirsten Wickman reminded us that the rise of Swedish design in the 1950s was carried by a massive influx of refugees following the Second World War, with companies such as Ikea founded on the notion that everyone is entitled to beauty. Wickman also hit a particular high note with the revelation that to be 'amateur' is to be 'in love', the word having originated from 'amore'.
Already ambitious, the various elements of Smart works – the exhibition, the stories, the people – combined to overshoot its anticipated reach. Candid, profound and generously given, the ideas were positively hurled around, synergies interwoven, colours layered, new concepts embraced and old passions affirmed. The craft and design community, geographically disparate and often solitary, was momentarily unified around this new thing we’d collectively uncovered, helpfully termed by Catrina Vignando as 'smartworkism'. I am smart, I make works, therefore I make smart works. And smart works work.
Emily Howes is a freelance design writer currently undertaking postgraduate research on internet-based craft cultures at University of Technology Sydney.
Smart works: design and the handmade
Peter Day on ABC Radio National, 28 April 2007
TAGS
+ Smart works: design and the handmade
+ Handmade
+ Mass-production
+ Studio production
Grace Cochrane, Smart works: design and the handmade curator, convenor, creator, introduced the symposium with the recognition that we’re living in a changing world. Craft and design (and everything else) are in the process of being forever altered by unbridled technological advances. She asked: what are the implications of this? How will ways of manufacture, of doing business, selling, and the role of the handmade alter in the future?
Fittingly for a freewheeling world, it was a non-designer who addressed the symposium first. Economics broadcaster Peter Day responded to Cochrane’s questions with reference to the changing economic framework wrought by the rise of the internet. We are, as he pointed out, on the edge of a new kind of capitalism, one where consumer sets the terms of the exchange. With BBC-perfect rolling vowels and lucid verbal imagery, he described the new world order: customisation, rampant blog-based commentary, mini-business made viable through eBay, 'back-label narratives'. To capture the concept, he quoted the founder of the now deceased search engine excite.com, Joe Kraus: 'Customers don’t want a choice, they want exactly what they want.' This new regime spells doom for old-fashioned businesses that can’t or won’t accommodate the demands of the new generation of consumers. However, the growing desire for authenticity poses unprecedented opportunities for the crafts in particular. To his audience of craft insiders, he concluded: 'This is probably your century if you want to take it.'
It was during Day’s talk that we first heard the phrase 'the China price', a concept that many others would reiterate. Practitioners particularly, whose professional narratives were scattered throughout the symposium, acknowledged China’s influence on their work. Some, such as industrial designer Jon Goulder and ceramicist Janet de Boos, have embraced Chinese manufacturing as a means to reduce the cover price of their products and open up newly viable creative avenues. De Boos also had the opportunity to dramatically expand her market. Both took pains to educate and collaborate with the factory workers, and their work developed to explore this new frontier. Their descriptions of the working conditions were very different from the caricatured sweatshop that too readily springs to mind. Similarly, Pamille Berg related positive stories of contracting a Chinese factory to translate Ernabella Arts’s distinctive batik designs into hand-knotted floor rugs. Ernabella’s indigenous artists developed relationships with the factory workers, exchanging photographs of one another at work.
Some practitioners, however, emphatically reject China and go to lengths to keep their manufacturing local. Furniture and lighting designer David Trubridge argued strongly against the China option on moral grounds. He pointed out that along with exporting money, intellectual property and skills, we’re also exporting the associated environmental problems. As coal powerhouses continue to proliferate, natural disasters and health problems will increasingly claim people’s lives and, he said, it will be our lifestyle that killed them. He posited a future scenario where email, not aircraft or container ships, becomes a means of export. With electronically transmitted plans, goods could be manufactured closer to their ultimate destinations.
Several designers, Trubridge included, maintained that offshore production is not desirable for them because contact with materials is pivotal to their practice. For Robert Foster of F!NK & Co, China is neither financially viable nor creatively desirable, as it denies him the necessary quality control and opportunities for hands-on material exploration. Oliver Smith spoke of the 'magic' unity of handcrafting and machine production when making his distinctive cutlery, each process enriching the other. Among the interesting fallout from Smart Works is the case of Marc Harrison who was torn between outsourcing and establishing his own factory to produce his unique bakelite-like resin made from macadamia husks. Influenced by testimonials from such self-manufactures as Foster, Trubridge and Stephen Ormandy from Dinosaur Designs, Harrison has since made the gutsy decision to establish a factory of his own and embrace the opportunities (and limitations) that this provides.
Supplementing the conversations surrounding China were recurrent themes regarding the handcrafts’ capacity to rehabilitate and empower communities. Kirsten Ainsworth and Cathy Braid of fashion label Caravana travelled to northern Pakistan’s Chitral Valley to harness the embroidery skills of local women and provide employment opportunities. In this extraordinarily remote setting, sandwiched between the volatile regions of Kashmir and Afghanistan, the place Osama Bin Laden goes to hide, Ainsworth and Braid crafted their first collection. Their success not only exceeded their expectations but also the capacity of the local infrastructure, notably with Braid opting to trek in the snow over a mountain pass to deliver orders rather than trust a courier. The embroiderers gained an income and independence, and Caravana, meanwhile, discovered that there is a strong market for products with such integrity.
Alexander Lotersztain shared his experiences working with traditional craftspeople in developing countries, helping them create products amenable to the western marketplace and thus cultivating sustainable industries. Geoff Crispin and Pamille Berg related the story behind the distinctive ceramics and textiles of Ernabella Arts, which generate much-needed funds for this remote indigenous community, including financing specialist medical equipment. On the subject of economic sustainability, Ernabella’s decision to price their rugs to match the cost of ordinary carpeting is admittedly hard to understand. Those who invest in an Ernabella rug are unlikely to be doing so on the basis of cost. The rugs are exquisite, spirited, unique and of superior production quality, and goodness knows the artists and community could use the funds. Surely then, rather than comparing rug with rug, we should be comparing art with art and multiply the price by a factor of ten at least.
There is an altruistic role for the machine-made too. Trubridge and Foster extend their societal reach through mentoring young and emerging designers, sharing their expertise and studios, and helping them to progress their work to the marketplace. Professor Kirsten Wickman reminded us that the rise of Swedish design in the 1950s was carried by a massive influx of refugees following the Second World War, with companies such as Ikea founded on the notion that everyone is entitled to beauty. Wickman also hit a particular high note with the revelation that to be 'amateur' is to be 'in love', the word having originated from 'amore'.
Already ambitious, the various elements of Smart works – the exhibition, the stories, the people – combined to overshoot its anticipated reach. Candid, profound and generously given, the ideas were positively hurled around, synergies interwoven, colours layered, new concepts embraced and old passions affirmed. The craft and design community, geographically disparate and often solitary, was momentarily unified around this new thing we’d collectively uncovered, helpfully termed by Catrina Vignando as 'smartworkism'. I am smart, I make works, therefore I make smart works. And smart works work.
Emily Howes is a freelance design writer currently undertaking postgraduate research on internet-based craft cultures at University of Technology Sydney.
Smart works: design and the handmadePeter Day on ABC Radio National, 28 April 2007TAGS
+ Smart works: design and the handmade
+ Handmade
+ Mass-production
+ Studio production