different visions
Writings of a metalware exhibition occupy uncertain territory in a contemporary journal of the visual arts. Editorial space is appropriate, however, not because these objects represent a kind of 'functional artwork', but because ideas which interest the contemporary visual arts community are also often current with theorists, practitioners and writers involved with craft, design and architecture. While mindful of the distinctions between these disciplines, there is nevertheless a shared engagement with the broader terms of reference of cultural practice-with new technologies, new social structures, the new consumerism and increasingly with ecological issues.1 Shared Interests, Different Visions, an exhibition of contemporary metalware, offers a positive point from which to consider some observations about the place for the practice, exhibition, and publishing, of craft and design in Queensland.
Shared Interests, Different Visions exposed objects by nine craftworkers and designers at the Crafts Council of Queensland (CCQ) recently. Curated by Brisbane-based metalsmith, Sandra Appleby, the exhibition was the first product of the CCQ's Crafts Curator Traineeship. CCQ Director Johanna Watson initiated the scheme to provide a curatorial training program and to increase the quality and quantity of craft exhibitions. This first exhibition generously embraced diversity within the ranks of craft and design practitioners, consciously making room for "different visions ". This might superficially seem at odds with a sense of coherence, but it is diversity which challenges notions of 'craft' as a homogeneous form of practice. Languages and physical structures construct an understanding of visual arts practice, for example, as finely differentiated. But 'craft' is commonly viewed as an homogeneous zone, its practitioners collectively identified by their 'otherness' (usually in relation to arts practice).2 The persistence of this categorization is remarkable. Key writers