Group Admins
Café Austral
Public Group active 4 months, 3 weeks agoThis group is for craft writers and curators from the southern latitudes, including Africa, Australasia, the Pacific and Latin America. This includes members of the Craft Talk network.
Este grupo es para los escritores y curadores de artesianas de las latitudes del sur, incluida África, Oceanía, el Pacífico y América Latina. Esto incluye a miembros de la red de Craft Talk.
-
Convenor started the forum topic What’s the role of a national craft organisation? in the group
Café Austral 6 months, 1 week agoThe Australia Council recently decided to de-fund Craft Australia. Given the geographical size of Australia, it operates on a federal system, which grants some autonomy to the states. So there are a number of […]
-
Catrina joined the group
Café Austral 10 months, 1 week ago -
Virginia Kaiser joined the group
Café Austral 1 year, 2 months ago -
Grace Cochrane joined the group
Café Austral 1 year, 5 months ago -
Grace Cochrane posted on the forum topic The Draft Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 5 months agoWhat a job – trying to distil the arts into a few years of education between K-12, bearing in mind existing teacher training, limitations of school resources and changes in general perceptions in the field outside school. Of course, contexts change, priorities change, and we often see things coming round again: we’ve had ‘painting is [...]
-
Kevin Murray started the forum topic The Draft Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 5 months agoI’ve just found the draft arts curriculum for Australia here http://www.acara.edu.au/arts.html It’s a curious document that seems to emphasise the role of imagination at the expense of skilling. In the Glossary of Key Terms you will find the following definition: craft(ing) “In this curriculum the term refers to the ways in which artists work through [...]
-
Kevin Murray posted on the forum topic Where to put baskets in an art gallery? The place of traditional cultures in art history in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 5 months agoThanks for that John. Have you come across Moira Vincentelli’s book Women Potters: Transforming Traditions ? She writes about ceramicists like Magdalene Odundo, many who have ‘made it’ in the north. There’s also Steven Smith’s writing – http://www.stevensmithpottery.com, which contains interesting observations. Most people would be familiar with Nesta…[Read more]
-
MOYRA ELLIOTT joined the group
Café Austral 1 year, 5 months ago -
John Steele joined the group
Café Austral 1 year, 5 months ago -
John Steele posted on the forum topic Where to put baskets in an art gallery? The place of traditional cultures in art history in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 5 months agoherewith outline of my focus for this panel: Abstract for the panel “Where to put baskets in an art gallery? The place of traditional cultures in art history”, from John Steele, South Africa: Getting to know you and your artworks better: some reflections on ceramics practices and collections of works created by Alice Gqa Nongebeza [...]
-
Kevin Murray started the forum topic Where to put baskets in an art gallery? The place of traditional cultures in art history in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 5 months agoThis is a panel for the conference Mobility, Circulation, Transnationalism: Art History and the Global South in Johannesburg 12-15 January 2011 (see http://www.wits.ac.za/conferences/savah). Some of the questions include: How can innovation be accounted for within a collective practice? To what extent can Western institutions such as art galleries…[Read more]
-
Ross Annels joined the group
Café Austral 1 year, 6 months ago -
Marcos posted on the forum topic Who is collecting contemporary craft? in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 6 months agoGood Q ! …Mostly The “Institutionalised” Cultural Gleaners, believe the Kraft as “Folk art” therfor not relevant ~ for real ! Man ! So much is lost with the collecting, as you might find from the last 2 decades , in the idear` of following any practitioners output over time, thereby alowing a glowing developmental [...]
-
Juliette joined the group
Café Austral 1 year, 6 months ago -
Kevin Murray started the forum topic Who is collecting contemporary craft? in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 6 months agoIt seemed useful to signal an issue that is of ongoing concern in craft at our end of the world. As we know, the state art institutions collected a large amount of craft up to the 1990s, then most seemed to neglect the field and focus instead on the more conceptual visual art. These institutions [...]
-
Kevin Murray started the forum topic What does the adjective 'power' mean in craft? in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 6 months agoTraditionally, craft objects were imbued not only with utilitarian and aesthetic value, they also had the capacity to ward off evil or help achieve good fortune. From our modernist standpoint, to engage with the dimension of ‘power’ in craft today seems nostalgic, if not superstitious. But are there examples of where objects still play an [...]
-
Peta Carlin posted an update in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 6 months agoThe Place Research Network is a website, built around social networking software adapted to academic needs, that aims to support, enable and encourage interdisciplinary discussion, engagement and networking around the idea of place (as well as associated concepts of space, time, and much more). Then fact that place is such a central and ubiquitous…[Read more]
-
Peta Carlin joined the group
Café Austral 1 year, 6 months ago -
Ian Were joined the group
Café Austral 1 year, 6 months ago -
Kevin Murray posted an update in the group
Café Austral: 1 year, 6 months agoWelcome everyone from Craft Talk.
- Load More
The issue seems to be, not that there is no longer a need for a national craft organisation in a federation of states, but rather that Object sees itself as taking on that role here in Australia in a very proactive way. Object’s tagline is “Australian Centre for Design” and it makes it clear on its About page and vision document…[Read more]
Thanks for pointing this out Judith. Yes, there’s no question that Object has laid very ambitious plans as a national body for design. But this does not at all cover the role that a national craft body would play. Its aims do not relate to the promotion of an ongoing national story about the things we make as expressions of place. Theirs is a…[Read more]
I get the feeling that design is increasingly being used as an inclusive term for ‘craft, design and creativity’. The Dictionary of Australian Artists Online (http://www.daao.org.au/) renamed itself Design and Art Australia to be more inclusive, but the semantic issues reflect an ongoing unresolved dialectic. The transition from Craft…[Read more]
Both design and art are relatively abstract activities that emphasis creativity and imagination. But someone somewhere is going to have to make these ideas a reality. Because thinking and making have become globally separated (think in the West and make in the East), we tend to take production and skill for granted. But I think the GFC is showing…[Read more]
OK, I’m convinced! It does sound as though there will be a significant gap in the tripartite infrastructure without Craft Australia. The Arts Council Strategic Directions [1] still include craft under the Visual Arts Board. The 2002 Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy [2] had strong recommendations in 6.3 for a limited number of organisations to…[Read more]