A new chapter for Australian Craft and design

Craft Australia is issuing this press release to notify all of our readers and followers that the organisation will be closing from 30 April 2012.

Craft Australia was notified in October 2011 that it would no longer receive funding from the Australia Council for the Arts. With no alternative means of significant support to continue to deliver national advocacy services for the craft and design sector, the Craft Australia Board of Directors agreed to wind up the organisation.

Additional assistance for this purpose was received from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. The Board and staff at Craft Australia has spent the past 12 weeks ensuring that the organisation is wound up responsibly and that as far as is practical, all assets, historical archives and programs be passed on to new host organisations to be managed.  

Since it was established in 1971, Craft Australia has played a critical role in the development of craft and design in Australia. It staged exhibitions, many of them touring interstate and overseas. The magazine covered developments in Australia as well as from around the world of craft and design, particularly the Asia Pacific region. And it hosted a myriad of workshops and conferences that created a strong sense of community around the pursuit of beauty in crafted objects. While we mourn this loss, we are pleased to say that as we prepare to close the Craft Australia chapter of the Australian craft and design book, we have started a new chapter with Australia’s national collecting organisations and the network of Australian Craft and Design Centres, ACDC.

Craft Australia website

The Craft Australia website, in its entirety, has been archived through Pandora, a web archiving program at the National Library of Australia. This ensures that all the articles and referenced information on the site continues to be accessed and is able to be referenced.

craft + design enquiry journal

The future of the C+DE Journal has been secured with new hosts at the Australian National University School of Art. Transition support to migrate the journal with minimal disruption was made available from the Visual Arts Board. Craft Australia developed the craft + design enquiry journal in 2009 to promote the research capabilities in the craft and design sector. Three volumes of the journal have already been published. Read more.  

The digitised image collection

The National Library of Australia has also been critical in assisting Craft Australia to digitise the national historical collection of slides. Over 4,000 images from this collection, made up mostly from the education slide kits developed by Craft Australia in the 80s and 90s are now accessible online through ehive, an online collection management portal. This is a tremendous resource for the sector that is free to access and will now be managed by the National Gallery of Australia who has included this digital material in their Research Library.

The Historical Collection

We are delighted to have had the support of the National Gallery of Australia, (NGA) to secure the Craft Australia historical collection. The forty-one year archive of the organisation, the Craft Australia Library of monographs, journals and ephemera have all been accepted into the NGA’s Research Library.  In addition, all of the undigitised slides held by Craft Australia and most of the collection will also be housed at the NGA. This initiative from the NGA, Australia’s flagship cultural organisation, is an invaluable support for the future of the craft and design sector. Additional works from the Craft Australia Collection will also be going to the Tasmanian Museum and Gallery and the Art Gallery of South Australia.

The Next Step

The Board of Directors will meet in Canberra on 15 May to hold a Special General Meeting to complete the winding up of Craft Australia. Communication with Craft Australia over this period will be limited. Email contact is the best way to ensure your enquiries are answered.

Other resources

The ACDC network, will continue to provide national craft and design support for the craft and design sector. The network will have a rotating secretariat that will initially be managed by Craft ACT Craft and Design Centre.

On behalf of the Board and staff of Craft Australia I thank you for your support, your letters and your comments in the petition.  It is with a heavy heart that we close this chapter of the Australian craft and design story. However, we feel confident the future directions for Australian craft and design will provide equally engaging and evocative chapters. 

Catrina Vignando

General Manager

April 2012

Resources

ACDC network

NAVA

WWC Australasia

The craft +design enquiry journal continues

Craft Australia is pleased to announce the ongoing life of one of its projects, the craft + design enquiry research e-journal.

"As part of Craft Australia's winding up process we have endeavoured to find new host organisations for our key activities", said General Manager, Catrina Vignando.

After 41 years of operating as the nation's peak advocacy organisation for contemporary craft and design, Craft Australia will close its doors at the end of April 2012. However, the craft + design enquiry journal, which provides an important publishing platform for the research excellence in craft and design practice, will continue.

"The recent confirmation that the Australian National University, (ANU) School of Art will become the new hosts for this journal is very reassuring", said Ms Vignando.

The journal is a significant innovation for the promotion of the research capabilities in the craft and design sector. Craft Australia developed the craft + design enquiry journal in 2009 and have already published three volumes of the journal. In the short time it has been in circulation it has achieved Excellence in Research for Australia rating and is recognised internationally as a noteworthy journal for practice based research.

"We are excited that as an outcome of the journal being hosted by the ANU School of Art, the future volumes of the craft + design enquiry will be published by ANU E Press", said Ms Deves, the Editorial Manager of the journal.

The move to the ANU School of Art is expected to cause little disruption to the journal's publishing schedule. The next volume, CDE#4, is due to be published July 2012 on the theme of 'Relational Craft and Design'.

New contact and address details for the craft + design enquiry journal will be available shortly. In the interim people can register with the online journal and be on the mailing list for future updates.craft + design enquiry.


Catrina Vignando
Craft Australia
April 2012

Related Links
craft + design enquiry
ANU E PRESS

Vol 3 (2011) Sustainability in Craft and Design (paper no2)

Ideological Constructs - Past Visions/Future Possibilities: evaluating the endangered subjects in the context of emerging global sustainability and environmental agendas.

By Mary Loveday Edwards

Abstract

In searching for reasons why the applied arts might be considered 'endangered subjects', this project's research proposal hypothesised that the applied arts were endangered subjects not necessarily for reasons of progression.  Other research speculates that primary and secondary schools have in the past phased out or abandoned craft subjects, and that students therefore did not think to choose crafts at tertiary level.  However, this research posited that the crafts subjects were endangered not because they were off the schools' radars but because they were off the radar of a wider society:  that they had lost their ideological impulse.
The single most important point to emerge from the project was the need to make explicit, to understand, and to develop, the empowering social-symbolic relationships that surround 'craft' as a construct forged between sets of practices, materials and 'communities'. This paper traces the project from inception to completion and discusses the findings.

Full Text: PDF

Vol 3 (2011) Sustainability in Craft and Design all papers
Craft Australia Research Centre website
Call for Papers Issue #5 website

 

Vol 3 (2011) Sustainability in Craft and Design (paper no1)

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

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. Full PDF

Images 1 and 2 ‘Craftivism’ in action: Marianne Joergensen’s Pink M.24 Chaffee is a collaborative project incorporating knitted squares from hundreds of contributors.

Vol 3 (2011) Sustainability in Craft and Design all papers
Craft Australia Research Centre website
Call for Papers Issue #5 website

Sustainability in Craft and Design, Volume 3, 2011

 Sustainability in Craft and Design, Volume 3, 2011  NOW ONLINE

 The Craft Australia Research Centre announces the publication of the third volume of craft + design enquiry, its open access, peer-reviewed, online journal, interrogating discourses surrounding craft and design practice.

Edited by Dr Kevin Murray, Sustainability in Craft and Design explores how craft and design responds to the challenge of global warming by facilitating social change.  The six papers published in this issue by Rod Bamford, Matthew Kiem, Peter Hughes, Mary Loveday Edwards, Sharmila Wood, Emilia Ferraro, Rehema White, Eoin Cox , Jan Bebbington and  Sandra Wilson examine issues of sustainability in relation to aspects of craft and design practice in Australia, the United Kingdom and India

Volume 3 online
 
craft + design enquiry
Call for Papers Volume 5: website

Image: Simone Le Amon,  Lepidoptera chair 2008, stainless steel, polyurethane, polyester, 110 x 85 x 70 cm  Collection of the artist, Melbourne  © Simone Le Amon

A World in Making: Cities Craft Design - Volume #5 Call for papers

craft + design enquiry is pleased to announce a new call for papers for the fifth issue of the journal to be published in 2013.

A World in Making: Cities Craft Design

Guest Editor, Suzie Attiwill is calling for papers for this on the theme of A World in Making: Cities Craft Design as outlined below.

On 12 March 1913, a naming ceremony took place in an empty paddock on a hill. This rural environment was to become a city, the capital city of Australia, the city of Canberra. The aspirations and the projections of the Griffins' winning design for Canberra are an example of a world-in-making involving the practices of design and craft. This issue of craft + design enquiry will be published in 2013 - 100 years after this event and when, for the first time in history, more than half the world's population live in cities. By 2030, this will increase to at least 60% with significant growth happening in cities of developing countries and the emergence of meta-cities with 20 million inhabitants. 'The twenty-first century will be known as the century of the city'.¹

This next issue of craft + design enquiry will focus on and highlight the role, contribution and potential of craft and design practices to the urban environment as well as the transformation of these practices - a world in making.

 Call for Papers website

1. Tibaijuka, A.K., 2010. Inaugural Address UN Pavilion Lecture Series, Shanghai World Expo 2010 - Better Cities, Better Life. Available at: [Accessed April 24 2011].