#NAVAideas - visible craft

Craft requires advocacy and a platform to protect and preserve its future. The above situation provides us with a significant opportunity to insist on increased visibility for the national craft and design ecology and the unique makers who are the innovators of Australia’s future. They are the story tellers of our multiple histories, the spaces and people who generate cultures of learning and exchange, the makers and investors who open up new markets and the collaborators who experiment with solutions for our communities.

We will discuss Australia’s long history of making, engagement and innovation, the current boom in desire for the unique and handmade, and the greater recognition of cross-disciplinary practice in the face of the absorption of craft and design into arts funding models and changes to education and global production methods, which are rendering craft almost invisible and voiceless. We will look to actions we can take as makers, researchers, educators and facilitators to create a resilient future for the sector together.

View the videos below featuring Karina Clarke, CEO, Design Tasmania and Lou Weis, Creative Director, Broached Commissions sharing their thoughts and experiences on visible craft: the politics of making. Then get involved in the online discussion via Twitter on the issues and possible solutions or strategies for artists working outside the gallery.

With provocateurs:

Karina Clarke, designer, educator and CEO, Design Tasmania

Lou Weis, researcher and Creative Director, Broach Commissions

Anna Varendorff, artist and jeweller

Trent Jansen, designer and educator

Liane Rossler, artist, designer, curator and creative advisor

Georgia Hutchison, artist, designer, curator and Craft and Design Manager, NAVA

Be sure to hashtag #NAVAideas to participate in the conversation.

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