Australasian Student Design Awards 2009

Sustainable Design – design for the environment

Calling all emerging designers. this much-acclaimed and keenly contested DIA awards program gives design students and institutions the chance to show their best work to the entire country and win valuable prizes.

The Australasian Student Design Awards 2009 program is now open to all Australian and New Zealand full time students currently studying or recently graduated from their final year Diploma, 3rd or 4th year Advanced Diploma or 3rd or 4th year Degree, in 2nd semester 08 or 1st semester 09.

Australia and New Zealand’s Best

The DIA invites tertiary institutions to nominate their top students per category disciplines: Interior Design, Interior Decoration, Furniture Design, Graphic Design & Visual Communication, Textile Design, Industrial Design, Exhibition & Display Design and, new for 2009 – Jewellery Design.

“Overall each year the entries are outstanding; it’s very difficult to make a decision due to the students high standards of design and presentation” said Geoff Fitzpatrick FDIA, National Strategy Director.

Sustainable design emphasis All entries must demonstrate a significant awareness of environmentally sustainable design practice, as this is one of the main judging criteria.

Exhibited at designEX The Australasian Student Design Awards will viewed by over 20,000 of designers, businesses, and the public, over the three day designEX event at the Melbourne Convention Centre on April 30 – May 2 2009.

Prizes The 2009 prize pool includes thousands of dollars in cash, vouchers, design products, software, and DIA memberships. Past winners and finalists have gone onto reap enormous success in Australia and globally. Most recently, Leigh Ryan who received the Industrial Design Award 2008, was snapped up by international design company, Dyson.

For more information please contact:

Caroline Benzie

National Program & Events Officer

cbenzie@design.org.au

Tel 1300 888 056

The election of Barack Obama seems to have galvanised the world at a time of great social risk. Some have seen the current financial crisis as an important opportunity to ‘re-boot’ the system, to develop more constructive bilateral relations and initiate more inclusive policies. With the glow of change in the air, there is a new jewellery exhibition in development. It has the working title, Signs of Change: Jewellery Designed to Make a Better World. Developed by FORM to coincide with the next JMGA conference in Perth, it provides the opportunity to re-think jewellery as something for the many, rather than the exclusive few. They are currently calling for expressions of interest, due end of January 2009.

Here’s a brief outline (the full document is available here):

Exhibition Curator: Elisha Buttler/FORM (elisha@form.net.au)
Exhibition Guest Curator: Kevin Murray (change@kitezh.com) Exhibition venue and dates: April-June 2010, Midland Atelier, Perth

Can jewellery function as an instrument of change?

Jewellery is expanding in scope. Traditionally, the production of a beautiful adornment served as a marker of individual status. Emerging trends in jewellery and related object design are beginning to challenge many customary ideas of jewellery. The creative power of the jeweller is extending beyond the bench to the world which the object will inhabit. This includes jewellery as a functional device, an agent of social change and a way of bringing people together. These trends provide the basis of a FORM exhibition in development for 2010.

Concepts such as ‘functionality’ and ‘change’ are open to multiple interpretations. However for the initial purposes of this exhibition, they have been grouped into two key categories:

1. Function and Technology

This category includes jewellers and related designers who create products possessing tangible functions or new technologies which aim to deploy specific benefits to individuals and/or the broader community. Emphasis will be placed on designs that point to long-term benefits, rather than one-off, largely conceptual pieces.

2. Sociology and Symbolism

This category includes the less tangible elements of contemporary jewellery which have potential to alter perspectives and promote action through their symbolic connotations. Like the Function and Technology category, the underlying themes here are designs which focus on benefits and heightened social awareness for individuals and the broader community.

The exhibition will explore jewellery that fits into either (or both) of the above groups, while focusing on the varied levels of ‘change’ jewellery can wield; namely in the areas of health, technology, sciences and community.

This is a relatively new area of development but one which possesses immense potential for groundbreaking innovation and cross-disciplinary, cross-industry advancement. A central aim of the exhibition will be to highlight this potential for innovation and cross-sector collaboration through jewellery design, and the strategies, investment and other conditions required to foster these new directions.

Also key to the exhibition will be examinations of the crossovers between the two categories, and the relationships between aesthetics and practicality.

Exhibition
16 December 2008
to 31 January 2009

1 Oxford Street, Paddington
Crn South Dowling Street

P: 02 9357 4887
E: gallery@pablofanque.com.au

DECEMBER HOURS
Sun & Mon 12-4,
Tues & Wed 10-6,
Thurs 10-7,
Fri & Sat 10-5,
Closed 25 and 26 December

JANUARY HOURS
Tues to Sat 10-6,
Thurs until 7,
Closed Jan 1, 2009

Annette Gerritse

Katrina Virgona Winger

J&MGA. W.A. – Kingfisher Gallery

The Jewellers & Metalsmiths Group of W.A. (J&MGA. W.A.) hold a themed member’s exhibition every two years. This years theme is the Ring and 42 members have taken up the challenge to design and make up to a maximum of five rings each. This exhibition, The Ring Project will showcase the diversity and talent of Western Australian Metalsmiths & Jewellers.

Kingfisher Gallery

www.kingfishergallery.com.au