Into the next decade
The word cusp comes from the Latin cuspis, meaning ‘point’. You can see lots of cusps in Gothic churches: the point where two arches meet, and the little points on the surface of teeth that are flat on top are also called cusps. The word also refers to a point of transition between two different states; of being on the edge or brink of something, as in ‘Being on the cusp of success’. It is not surprising that such a potent word has been frequently used in the titles of arts projects around the world.
It is the latter meanings that apply to ‘Cusp: Designing into the Next Decade’, an exhibition produced by Sydney’s Object: Australian Design Centre and currently touring within Australia until late 2015. ‘Cusp’ features the work of twelve individual designers or groups, each aiming to develop creative solutions to some of the challenges we are facing. In a video the designers voice their interpretations of the word: ‘Cusp means to me a transition, a moving of one state to another’, says Alison Page; ‘Signs of change’, notes Stephen Mushin; ‘… something on the verge, just on the point of almost tipping over’, says George Khut; ‘When I hear the word cusp’, explains Floyd Mueller, ‘I think of a leap that marks a significant change’. More poetic was this from MaterialByProduct’s director Susan Dimasi: ‘Like teetering on a very beautiful, delicate, exquisite precipice’. The participants say a whole lot more than this, in fact how they talk about their work forms the heart of the show.
‘Cusp’, I soon discovered, is less of an exhibition and more of an encounter; the kind of show you have got... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
Leah Heiss in collaboration with Blamey and Saunders Hearing, Hearing Project, Hearing programmer ‘jewell’ concept design, 2013. 4 scales. Additive Manufactured plaster prints. Photography Narelle Sheean.
Chris Bosse, Cloud City: an urban ecosystem. Photograph Brett Boardman.
