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- Title of Exhibit Proposal:
A Designed Discourse (Ref #193)
- Date:
- 26-10-2006 01:22:04
- Status:
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Accepted with revisions
- Rating:
- 6
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Details:
- Exhibition Proposal ? A Designed Discourse
This exhibition presents ceramic work that investigates the dichotomy between the desire of a craft practitioner to design and produce beautiful objects, and the need to address the sustainability of contemporary consumer culture. Beyond the acknowledgment of the joy and challenges of producing in ones? studio, the research for this body of work investigates how we must accept the tangible impact of the objects we create as part of the capitalist system, regardless of the marketability, or lack thereof, of the work or it?s focus on academic discourses. Do the objects we as craft practitioners make become as Baudrillard theorizes ?signs with no meaning beyond their symbolic exchange value within the endless cycle of fashion?? Regardless of intention, what level of control does one have upon the reading or general consumption of the objects they produce and what of the ethical dilemma of creating objects in an object saturated consumer society?
Often craft, or in this case - ceramic craft, is positioned as offering resistance to the disposable economic system through it?s attachment to the handmade or its academic and theoretical underpinnings. But how is this resistance expressed or addressed through the objects themselves? This exhibition would present the design-based approach taken by the artist to the studio production of functional ceramics. Through research, which aimed to determine trends in contemporary industrial ceramics design, the resulting work incorporates a display and dialogue locating the designed aesthetic alongside that of the handmade. Through the methodology of positioning the work within the industrial aesthetic and working towards the handmade, rather than singularly representing the handmade, the work is able to address the separation forged by industry between the production process and the viewer/user of the object. In the end, objects produced with responsiveness to cultural trends, yet built on a foundation of tradition, material process knowledge and individuality, offer an alternative vision and methodology of production which can imbue the objects with qualities that create value and thus sustainability, in turn eliminating the necessity for disposability.
The end goal of the work is to find balance between a sustainable practice and the desire for freedom, craftsmanship and beauty. So is it possible to create beautiful objects that can be approached by a viewer and understood as more than mere meaningless objects subject to the will of fashion, and instead as objects that are relevant to contemporary discourses of production, culture, economics or politics. Can practitioners use beauty and design as a methodology that will aid to question how objects are active participants in our lives and activities, how they can foster re-thinking of values and ethics thus turning us towards forms of resistance and acts of sustainability and altering our engagement with the world.
The work for the exhibition is created in multiples, it uses repetition yet varies proportion and style to offer the viewer/user a selection or choice of individual, unique objects that contradict industrial design?s creation of a standard for an assumed average consumer. The interior of the pieces bears the marks of the hand highlighted by the use of glazes, which are rich in their display of the potential of the material. The underlying philosophy being that beautiful and unique objects enrich our lives through their mirroring of our own individuality and that craft is created as a responsive act, playing a part in the symbiotic interchange between ideas and individuals.
Handmade craft is not produced in isolation and therefore must acknowledge the sources and dialogues at play in its production. This exhibition addresses the need for discourse between these two fields of specialization within the ceramic discipline; industry and art. If the conference aims to critically question where emphasis need be located in craft discourse, this exhibition aims to address how all three discourses of object, process and maker are intrinsically linked and that what needs to be drawn into this discourse is how the resulting impact of the maker?s methodology and ideas, through process and object can be used to better address larger discourses of relevance in our societies.
Summary
The exhibition would present ceramic work exhibited as an installation of a table covered with ceramic objects (please see images) addressing questions of sustainability of craft practice; the relationship between craft, design and industry; and the symbiotic relationship between maker, process, user, object and contemporary culture.
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Images: (Click on the image to view it full size in a new browser window)
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Reviewer Comments: