The present era of contemporary Western Australian furniture design can be thought of as beginning under the influence of David Foulkes-Taylor (1956 until his death in 1966).
Despite the pull of the outback and the image of the Aussie bushman, the majority of modern Australians are urban dwellers, strung around the perimeter of the Continent. Little known to the outside world beyond our cultural icons of the kangaroo and the koala, few look to Australia as a source of contemporary design in any form, let alone fashion. Until recently, the global fashion market has seen fit to ignore the rest of our antipodean designers.
Exhibition review Masters Exhibitions 1996
12-28 September: Greg Geraghty, Johnathon Dady, Paul Dryga, Namchou Chitma
10-26 October: Rhonda Wheatland, Amanda Poland, Helen Stacey, Elizabeth Abbott, Brian Lynch
7- 23 November: Greg Fullerton, Danielle O'Brien, Julia McGuire, Harekrishna Bag,
University of SA Museum, Adelaide SA
Design for the new media encourages models which utilise multi-dimensional connectivities. Vertical layering of data is their area of exploration in comparison to the more conventional horizontal depiction of information on the page or in narrative cinema. The grammar of the interface designer has had to alter to accommodate random access and idiosyncratic hierarchies established by the user.
Exhibition review Messy and Restless: Helene Czerny, Julie Duffield, Paul Hoban, Terri Hoskin, Derek O'Connor
Contemporary Art Centre Adelaide SA
1- 24 November 1996
Australian Textile design from an RMIT perspective surveying current and future initiatives - practice based issues of developing guidelines for copyright in an industry that is known for - in polite terms-recycling and reworking proven designs, to the more speculative concept of creating a dialogue in textiles between Australian and other countries via the internet.
Book review Know-how, the guide to innovation in Australia
Interactive CD Rom published by Powerhouse Publications,
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney NSW
Macintosh/Windows
RRP $99.95
The exhibiting and collecting of contemporary Australian furniture design is a telling indicator of how we as a society regard design. Australian furniture has been seen at SOFA (Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art - Gallery Trade Fair Chicago USA) since 1993.