From shell work to shell art: Koori women creating knowledge and value on the South Coast of NSW

From shell work to shell art: Koori women creating knowledge and value on the South Coast of NSW: By Daphne Nash

Esme Timbery, Harbour Bridge, 2006, shell, fabric and cardboard. 30x15x7cm. A similar work to her prize winning artwork of the same name. Photo Daphne Nash. craft+design enquiry journal

Daphne Nash completed her PhD in Interdisciplinary Cross-cultural Research at the Research School of Humanities, Australian National University in 2009. Her thesis is entitled ‘Transforming knowledge: Indigenous Knowledge and culture workers on the south coast of NSW’. Daphne has also worked as a teacher and more recently as a research consultant on educational resources relating to Indigenous cultural heritage.

Abstract: For many years the shell art of Aboriginal women on the South Coast of New South Wales has been an icon of Aboriginal people’s survival in that region. It is on the record since the 1880s that Koori women have made shell work objects to sell to tourists. This practice is undergoing a revival, and recognition of shell art is increasing particularly through the making of Sydney Harbour Bridges and miniature shoes. As the art work of Indigenous people, shell art is increasingly entering into the art market. When its cultural connections are understood, shell art is no longer dismissed as “tourist art”. What forces are operating and how does shell art mean? Read complete paper

Abstract from From shell work to shell art: Koori women creating knowledge and value on the South Coast of NSW  By Daphne Nash

Full paper published in craft + design enquiry; Issue 2, 2010 Cross cultural exchanges in craft and design

Relational style: Craft as social identity in Australian fashion

Relational style: Craft as social identity in Australian fashion

by Jess Berry  

Women’s ensemble, 1980. Jenny Kee (designer), Jane Ayres (knitter), Flamingo Park, Sydney (manufacturer). From Free online craft+design enquiry Journal Issue 4

Abstract: Hierarchical schemas that devalue craft in relation to art and design practices are less prevalent within fashion discourse, as exquisite hand-craftsmanship continues to be inextricably linked to high fashion. This paper contends that the reciprocity between art, design and craft that occurs in fashion can be better understood if one considers examples outside the confines of Parisian couture. In particular, this paper focuses on the context of Australian dress, where the presence of visibly crafted elements is often associated with artistic mechanisms of critique.

The paper surveys examples of historic and current practice to argue that ‘craft’ has become a ‘style’ associated with art, and that this style can be seen as ‘relational’ in that it creates a social space of recognition. I will use the examples of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson from the 1970s and 1980s and contemporary label Romance Was Born to establish the presence of ‘visible craft’ as a style within Australian fashion. Comparing these practices, I argue that, in Australian fashion, visible craft is an aesthetic form that produces shared social identities of humour, kitsch and larrikinism.Read Complete paper

Abstract from  Relational style: Craft as social identity in Australian fashion   By Jess Berry 

Full paper published in craft + design enquiry; Issue 4, 2012 Relational Craft and Design

Beyond the seas

Beyond the Seas

By Stephen Dixon

Stephen Dixon studied Fine Art at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Ceramics at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1986. His work features in numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Arts & Design, New York, the British Council, the Crafts Council, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Museum of Scotland, and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. He is currently employed as Professorial Research Fellow in Contemporary Crafts at MMU Cheshire, investigating the contemporary printed image in ceramics. Specific research interests include the British satirical tradition (in both printmaking and ceramics), commemorative wares and ‘pop’ culture, and the development of socio-political narratives in contemporary ceramics.

Abstract: 

 This paper describes a practice-led research project undertaken in Australia in 2006, in which I sought to explore the relationship between radical changes in cultural/geographical environment and the production of unique forms of material culture. In this case the shift in environment was brought about by migration (enforced or otherwise) from the UK to colonial Australia, and the crafted artefacts of the colonial period (and after) were taken as representative of a particularly Australian material culture. As a maker it was important to me that this research was developed primarily through practice, supported by museum/archive study and fieldwork in Australia. The project therefore proposed a range of historical Australian artefacts as the subject of study, and my own creative practice as the vehicle of study. Read complete paper

 An example of re-located practice, Iron man, (enamelled tin plate). Found and re-worked on location in Adelaide, Australia, March 2006. 

Abstract of Beyond the seas, by Stephen Dixon

Full paper published in craft + design enquiry; Issue 1, 2009 Migratory Practices

 

SEEKING PAPERS FOR THE OPEN SECTION

Authors/researchers are encouraged to submit papers to the new OPEN section of craft + design enquiry

The new OPEN section in craft + design enquiry has been introduced to complement the THEMED section in each issue and to provide author/researchers with more opportunity to publish their work.  The OPEN section will publish research papers on any aspect of contemporary craft and design. All papers submitted to the OPEN section will be peer-reviewed and selected in accordance with existing craft + design enquiry procedures.  

Submitted papers must be previously unpublished and written within the last five years.  Authors are encouraged to submit suitable papers. Papers will be selected for publication following peer-review.

OPEN Section Submission closing date:  30 June 2013 for publication in issue c+de#6 (2014).

For further information, a Submission Lodgement Form and Author Guidelines contact jenny.deves@anu.edu.au

CURRENT CALL FOR PAPERS ISSUE 6, 2014

Now closed
Current Calls for Papers for issue #6, 2014
Calls for Papers  closing on 30 June 2013 

Call for  New OPEN Section

craft + design enquiry has introduced a  new OPEN section to complement the THEMED section in each issue of the journal.  The OPEN section will publish selected papers on any aspect of contemporary craft and design research. All papers submitted to the OPEN section will be peer-reviewed in accordance with existing craft + design enquiry procedures. Papers will be selected to go forward for peer-reviewing on submission of a completed paper. Submission closing date:  30 June 2013 for publication in c+de#6 (2014)

For further information, a Submission Lodgement Form and Author Guidelines contact jenny.deves@anu.edu.au

Call for Themed Section  -  Craft · Material · Memory

Guest edited by Anne Brennan and Patsy Hely

Craft is often invoked as an antidote to change, its materials and practices described and inscribed in terms of continuity and tradition. However, this is a comparatively recent idea that has its roots in the turbulent moment of the Industrial Revolution, a way of negotiating and at times resisting the huge economic, social and cultural changes that were sweeping Europe at the time. Some argue that we are currently experiencing a similar period of profound upheaval as we grapple with the implications of climate change, globalisation and the impact of the information revolution on our societies and cultures. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this period of change is mirrored by a resurgence of interest in relationships between craft and memory, particularly in relation to the specific histories of certain practices, and also to the histories and experiences of individuals. This issue of craft + design enquiry invites papers that will re-examine and re-evaluate relationships between craft, materials and memory at a time of global change.

One possible thread of enquiry might address material histories, engaging with the way in which the histories, usages and even composition and production of traditional craft materials has shifted and changed over time. What might be the implications of these shifts and changes, and how have contemporary political, social, cultural and environmental exigencies shaped the way in which such materials are made, used and considered today?

Another thread of enquiry might explore relationships between craft and the archive. As museums and archives shift and change in response to the contemporary world, new ways of viewing objects and different interpretive strategies are constantly in play. Craft and design scholarship has expanded considerably over the last decades. How are crafted objects in collections being differently interpreted and understood in the light of these changes?

A third line of enquiry might attend to relationships between craft, memory and individual histories. Autobiographical strategies on the part of both makers and writers about craft developed as a way of undermining the imposition of the aesthetic priorities of the fine arts on craft, and as a way of investing craft’s objects with meanings that recognise the way in which objects circulate through lives and cultures. The editors are particularly interested in papers that re-evaluate and re-imagine these strategies, in particular papers that question some of the more comforting connections that have been made between craft’s histories and practices and autobiography as the locus of an unproblematic and idealised past.

— Anne Brennan and Patsy Hely, Editors craft + design enquiry #6

          Anne Brennan is an artist and writer and the head of the Art Theory Workshop of the ANU School of Art. A founding member of Gray Street Workshop, she has written extensively on the visual arts, craft and design. Her research interests encompass the ways in which private and public memories coalesce in institutions such as the memorial and the archive. She has undertaken a number of projects in archives and museums, including Secure the Shadow at the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, with Anne Ferran in 1995 and Archives and the Everyday at the Australian War Memorial in 1996. She is currently engaged in a writing project about memory and place.

          Patsy Hely is an academic and artist working in the field of ceramics and is Convenor of the Graduate Coursework and Honours programmes at the ANU School of Art. Her work is held in many national public collections, in the V & A (London) and in the Musee de   Mariemont (Belgium); she has exhibited widely in Australia and in a number of countries internationally. Her PhD, 'Ceramics and the Articulation of Place', was awarded in 2007 and           she is currently engaged in a project investigating early Australian ceramic objects and ideas about place and identity. She has worked at a number of institutions, including Sydney University Tin Sheds, the College of Fine Arts (COFA) and Southern Cross University.

Steps to submitting a paper to the themed section of  c+de#6

This issue of craft + design enquiry will be published by ANU E Press mid 2014. The Call for Papers closes on 30 June 2013.

Step 1: Anne Brennan and Patsy Hely (guest editors) ask contributors to submit an abstract from now until 30 April 2013. They will respond promptly to contributors about their proposed papers. Send your abstract to jenny.deves@anu.edu.au

Step 2: Following advice from the guest editors, contributors are required to complete and submit their final papers by 30 June 2013. Email jenny.deves@anu.edu.au  for a Submission Lodgement Form to be submitted with your paper.

Further information and Guidelines for Authors may be obtained from jenny.deves@anu.edu.au