Sydney Craft Week at Art & Design

A series of exhibitions and talks by UNSW Art & Design students and staff members feature as part of Sydney Craft Week 2017 presented by the Australian Design Centre (ADC).

Exploring the creative diversity of Sydney’s contemporary craft community, Sydney Craft Week is a ten-day festival celebrating the beauty of the handmade and the pleasure of making, bringing together the City's contemporary craft community in a festival for the very first time. Not limited to one material or mode of making, the wide-ranging festival program includes exhibitions, workshops, talks and open studios. 

According to Australian Design Centre, Director, Lisa Cahill, "Sydney Craft Week is a celebration of Sydney’s makers. Whether it’s spinning, weaving, turning, soldering, cutting, stitching or hand building with fibre, clay, metal, glass, paper, timber, plastic or some other material, this week is about all of us who honour the human need to make." 

PROGRAMS AT UNSW ART & DESIGN

Jewellery and Object Explorations
9 – 13 October
Opening Night: Tuesday 10 October, 5pm – 7pm
Level 1, F Block

Students in the jewellery studio design and produce wearable objects and small-scale interior objects. They use conceptual and practical knowledge of materials, techniques and processes to inform their design and production of jewellery and other small objects. The work presented in this exhibition shows a range of diverse project-based outcomes including ‘one-off’ pieces and work for small-scale production designed and made by undergraduate and post-graduate students.

Curated by UNSW Art & Design jewellery lecturers Bic Tieu and Melinda Young, the exhibition features work by undergraduate and post-graduate jewellery and object students at UNSW Art & Design.

Ceramics at UNSW Art & Design: Recent Works
11 – 21 October
Opening Night: Tuesday 10 October, 5pm – 7pm
AD Space Foyer (outside Lecture Theatre EG02), E Block

An exhibition of works from the UNSW ceramics studio. Students design and create artworks, custom-made artefacts, and commercial products for the table, interior and built environments. The program investigates conceptual approaches and a wide range of ceramic processes including handforming, slipcasting and digital 3D technologies. The work presented in this exhibition includes diverse project-based outcomes including artworks and work for small-scale production, designed and made by undergraduate and post-graduate students.

Selected by lecturer Kate Dunn, the exhibition includes students from the undergraduate and postgraduate program.

Galeecha: Cultural Textiles Design 
11 - 21 October
Opening Night: Tuesday 10 October, 5pm – 7pm
AD Space, E block

Galeecha: Cultural Textile Design exhibition presents the work of students enrolled in the immersive 2017 January / February Cultural Textiles course in Gujarat, India. The final project of the course required students to design motifs for block printed rugs and yardage. The featured designs were block printed with natural dyes onto handwoven cotton dhurrie rugs and cotton yardage by the studio of master block printers, Dr Ismail Khatri and Sufiyan Khatri in Ajrakhpur, Kutch, Gujarat, India. This exhibition translates the patterns and motifs of the student’s bespoke experience, resulting in the integration of local and international design to produce contemporary, handcrafted and exceptionally unique outcomes.

Curated by  Liz Williamson and students from the 2017 Cultural Textiles Fieldwork course.

The Ulmer Hocker Brief
11 – 21 October
Opening Night: Tuesday 10 October, 5pm – 7pm
AD Space Foyer (outside Lecture Theatre EG02), E Block

Students in the Object Design studio design and prototype functional three-dimensional objects. They use a conceptual and narrative-driven approach to the design of contemporary products such as furniture and lighting for domestic, commercial and other contexts.

In this exhibition, first-semester Object students present contemporary re-imaginings of the classic, post-Bauhaus, Ulmer Hocker stool.

Convened by Guy Keulemans and Julia Charles, lecturer and photographer.

Sydney Craft Week: Craft Up Late
Open: Wednesday 11 October, 6 - 8pm
AD Space & Level 1, F Block

As part of Sydney Craft Week: Craft Up Late, exhibitions, Jewellery and Object Explorations (Level 1, F Block), Ceramics at UNSW Art & Design: Recent Works, Galeecha: Cultural Textile Design, The Ulmer Hocker Brief (AD Space) will be open to the public 6 -8pm.

Can That be Taught? Lessons in Tacit Knowledge with Professor Jessica Hemmings
Tuesday 17 October, 6pm–8pm
Lecture Theatre EG02, E Block

Tacit knowledge is commonly thought of as held within the body. This lecture considers the unique demands of craft education through comparisons with other models of education that require a student to acquire tacit knowledge. While craft research often prioritises material knowledge, education systems delivered by organisations as varied as the Pony Club and the Canadian Avalanche Association also grapple with the shared challenge of how language may begin to convey – although never substitute – tacit knowledge of materials. This lecture considers what craft education may stand to gain from greater awareness of these alternative models of education.

The public lecture will be delivered by Professor Jessica Hemmings, Professor of Crafts, Vice-Prefekt of Research, Academy of Design & Crafts (HDK), University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Adjunct Professor at UNSW Art & Design.