Category: Partnerships

Posted on

How to Make a Promise

James Hansen, the man considered to be the father of climate change awareness, told The Guardian that the agreement was “bullshit” and just “worthless words. There is no action, just promises”
(James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks ‘a fraud’, Guardian 12/12/15)

If all we are left with is “promises”, how can we make them so that they will be kept?

Though promises that help increase trust are usually made of words, the phrases ‘to make a promise’ and ‘to build trust’ allude to a process of material construction. Verbal promises leave no trace, unless they are formalised as legal documents such as contracts. The increasingly temporary nature of contemporary life works against long-term social bonds.

Trust is at the core of what sustains a community, but it is particularly fraught as cities grow and become more diverse. The issue of Islamophobia reflects on the sense that a recent community in many Western countries cannot be trusted to behave appropriately.

The basic motive driving this project is to find a way of being useful in the world. While art clearly holds up an important mirror to reality, the challenge of design is to find ways of changing that world.

Posted on

Gondwana Bound

Following Neverland, Gondwana Bound considers what an Indian Australia would have been like. This project involves writers, artists and cooks to give free reign to their imagination and populate the continent with a Hindu civilisation.

  • What would the relationship be like between Aboriginal and Hindu peoples?
  • Are there aspects of Tamil culture that would be realised here that have been lost to history?
  • How would Indian cuisine use the bush spices of the land, such as lemon peppers and myrtles?

This journey calls on some adventurous pioneers of speculation.

Posted on

Welcome Signs: Contemporary Interpretations of the Garland

    Welcome Signs website now online at http://welcomesigns.craftunbound.net

    A common cultural thread throughout the Asia Pacific region is the ceremony of welcome. Honoured guests, returning fisherman and sometimes lost strangers are treated to delicacies, gifts, song and dance. The garland plays an important role as a beautiful and scented wreath with which to adorn the neck of a guest.

    With urbanisation, traditional communities and families are becoming increasingly fragmented. The welcome garland changes its function from an ephemeral part of the ritual to a keepsake of home. Degradable materials like flower petals can be replaced by other materials, including plastics, money and confections. This is particularly poignant in Pacific communities, where sea-level rises combined with economic diasporas is placing increasing pressure on maintenance of traditional culture.

    Welcome Signs is an exhibition of jewellery and adornment that draws on the tradition of the garland. It considers how the cultural traditions might be sustained despite displacement and urbanisation. And it re-considers the role of welcome in a world increasingly made of strangers, including temporary citizens, such as students and refugees.

    As a project, Welcome Signs draws on the success of the Melbourne Scarf Festival, which over five years explored the many cultural dimensions of this popular craft, including its religious, tribal, fashion, psychological and even technological aspects. By comparison, the garland is like a closed scarf whose meaning is more in the act of bestowal than in the wearing.

    It also draws from the Turn the Soil exhibition that toured Australia in 1998-9, featuring the work of second-generation Australians. As this exhibition visited venues throughout the country, it focused on different stories about the particular contribution of non-British cultures to the story of Australia.

    Welcome Signs aims to be a touring exhibition that not only contains beautiful and interesting objects, but also acts as a catalyst for thinking about the practice of welcome today. Jewellery will be sourced from throughout the Asia Pacific. This will include Australasian contemporary jewellers who create unique works of art out of these traditions. Works will include:

  • Salusalus and leis from Pacific islands, including new forms from Auckland
  • Innovative versions of the var mala garlands that are part of Hindu ritual
  • Urbanised versions of the phuang malai in Thailand
  • Contemporary interpretations of the tais from East Timor and selendang from Indonesia
  • Contemporary art neckpieces from Australasian jewellers, including wreaths, laurels and medals

Welcome Signs: Contemporary Interpretations of Traditional Garlands consists of several components

Delhi exhibition (confirmed)

New Delhi, India, 4-6 February 2011

Exhibition for the World Craft Council Jewellery Conference, Abhushan: Tradition & Design – Dialogues for the 21st Century

This exhibition from the Asia Pacific region will form a key element in the international survey of jewellery for this major convention

Touring exhibition (in development)

Posted on

The ayvu rapytá project

In 1893, a group of Australians set sail for Paraguay, where they sought to establish a utopian colony. Despite a generous land grant, the colony failed and was eventually abandoned. One problem is that it practiced a ‘white man’ socialism and tried to keep a distance from the local Indigenous Guarani. This isolated the colony from potential help.

While most returned to Australia, some remained. The next generation included Léon Cadogan, who became friendly with local Guaraní while playing in the bush as a child. As a young man, he championed the rights of the Guaraní against quite brutal treatment – they were only recognised as human beings in 1957. In 1949, Cadogan was made the first Curator of Indians for the Department of Guairá. During this time, he collected their rich mythology and eventually published a translation into Spanish of their classic genesis tale, ayvu rapytá.

Avyu rapytá is a wondrous story of creation that ranks alongside Popol Vuh as a one of the world’s great cultural expressions of the mystery of life’s origins. In this tale, the Great Father, ñanderuvusú, founds human language with a fragment of divinity, conceiving a sacred chant even before he created the earth itself. Very much around the origins of language, the story involves the quest for ayvu porä, the beautiful words of the gods. Creatures of nature, such as the humming-bird and owl are granted special powers. And echoing the Semitic genesis story, there is a primeval flood from which a new world emerges.

Despite the value of this story, Cadogan’s current translation of ayvu rapytá is quite difficult to find. More amazingly, it has never been translated into English. Léon Cadogan’s legacy is currently being continued by two of his sons. In Paraguay, Rogelio is carrying on the Léon Cadogan Foundation, protecting Indigenous rights. And in Australia, Léon (Jimmy) is publishing books about his own family and childhood in Paraguay.

The current project entails translating ayvu rapytá into English and producing a tri-lingual edition, in Guaraní, Spanish and English. There are a number of benefits to such a venture:

  • A unique contribution to the corpus of world creation stories
  • Making good what was a sad episode in Australian history
  • Focusing research into Guaraní culture
  • Bringing in Guaraní voices about the current state of their culture

Currently we are seeking interest from the following partners:

  • Translation services specialising in Guaraní language
  • Publishers with a focus on world literature
  • Anthropologists working in Guaraní creation myths
  • Organisations seeking to promote the interests of Indigenous peoples

Links