What would you say is the state of health of Australian craft/design? Recent ABS research tells us that it is the most popular form of active cultural engagement for the Australian community with about 1.7 million people involved in “textile crafts, jewellery making, paper or wood crafts” and another quarter million doing “glass crafts, pottery, ceramics or mosaics”. The stats also show that craft is almost as popular as all the performing arts put together.
However, the figures are very different for the professional practitioners surveyed in 2009 for the report by David Throsby and Anita Zednik, Do you really expect to get paid: an economic study of professional artists in Australia. This report indicates that the number of professional craft practitioners peaked at 5,500 in the early 1990s, but by 2009 had fallen to around 3,800, which is lower than the numbers for 1987. The latest ABS figures indicate a continuing fall, while in all other artforms the level gradually rose over this period.
So the question has to be asked, is the professional end of Australian craft/design getting the opportunities and profile it deserves in the competition for resources and cultural recognition?
These are the challenges being taken up in a new three-year National Craft Initiative. Readers will remember that following the Australia Council for the Arts’ defunding of Craft Australia and its subsequent demise in 2012, there was much soul searching about the best way forward for this segment of the arts. To facilitate change, the Visual Arts Board (VAB) allocated $300,000 over the three years from 2013 to 2015 towards a new approach.
Through a partnership formed between the Australian Craft and Design Centres (ACDC) and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA),
a strategic plan was developed and funded by the VAB to build strong foundations for the long-term growth and sustainability of Australian craft and design.
This National Craft Initiative will develop effective ways to offer greater career development support and opportunities to craft and design practitioners. It will encourage innovation and excellence in design/craft practice, build capacity and collaboration.
The Initiative will also provide a unified purpose for support infrastructure bodies and foster wider appreciation and participation by communities both nationally and internationally.
ACDC member organisations bring to the project their deep immersion in craft practice and a plethora of exciting exhibition, retail and other services offered at local, national and international level. NAVA, as the peak body for the professional Australian visual and media arts, craft and design sector, has extensive experience in advocacy and professional career development service provision for practitioners.
Both ACDC and NAVA believe that this is the right time for significant intervention both to enhance entrepreneurism within the traditional areas of public presentation and small business enterprise, but also through reaching into the creative industries and beyond into other parts of the public and private sector, manufacturing and industry. The intention of the National Craft Initiative (NCI) is to drive a meaningful co-ordinated response at a national level.
An NCI Program Manager, Bridie Moran has been appointed and in 2013 will initiate and oversee a major research project, consulting broadly with the craft and design sector and analysing existing practice, projects and infrastructure. The research outcomes will identify trends and opportunities and make recommendations for policies and programs required for the future sustainability and growth of Australian craft and design.
Planned for 2014 is a major international conference to stimulate fruitful discussion amongst craft and design practitioners and other professionals around key ideas emerging in local and international theory and practice. Running parallel to the conference will be a fair to showcase the best of Australia craft and design practitioners’ work.
There is an expectation that the conference will be the catalyst for ideas for innovative pilot projects to foster development for small to medium craft and design businesses. Both federal and state governments are showing an increased interest in the cultural industries and with the right stimulus, opportunities could be brokered for craft and design practitioners who are either developing their own businesses or offering their skills to be applied in other related fields.
Over the longer term, it is expected that the adoption of the national arts curriculum in schools from 2014 will foster greater appreciation of and participation in craft and design practice by the community and encourage young people’s interest in the choice of a career in craft and design.
To participate in the research and/or keep in touch with the project as it develops, email bridie@visualarts.net.au to be put on an email contact list.
