Repeat Business ... "um ... it's a bit like what we see all the time at Salamanca"

I've been reading the discussion thread on discussion, or lack of it, on the STOCK site. Getting discussion going is actually harder than we think. Every month there is a range of new exhibitions, each one of them posing questions, opening up a space for discussion. But how often does this discussion develop?

As the curator of the current exhibition at CAST - Repeat Business: Tasmanian Craft & Design - I was hopeful of eliciting some sort of a response. I had thought that my approach to the brief might sit a little awkwardly at CAST, and as a result might spark some sort of debate. Of course, at the opening there were a few comments made - gentle remarks about the relationship between what was in the gallery, and what can be seen down at Salamanca. But, I wonder, is this a criticism of the exhibition?

By way of back ground, let me say that I was very purposeful in my desire to present the exhibition in a way that played with the relationship between installation and retail arrangement. Those who have seen the exhibition will have noted the fact that the labels were left on many items ... from my point of view, the labels are part of the marketing work of the practice and that's integral to how I hoped the work would be seen ... when you first encounter an object in a retail space the label can have an impact on how you engage with it. Of course, they also serve to clearly distinguish some new items from similar pieces that have been in use, helping to open up one of the key threads I explored in the catalogue essay ... which was, in part, about the process of buying and then using craft and design objects ... allowing souvenirs to gradually work their way into your life.

All this firmly slips into a view of what Tasmanian craft & design is all about ... so the exhibition is partly reflecting back some part of the process of being a visitor to Tasmania looking at craft & design. Of course, this is only a partial view ... and by that very fact, it leaves things out. What exhibitions leave out is often as important a point for discussion as is comment on the things they include ... for example, there aren't any recent PhD graduates in this exhibition.

While I was working on this exhibition I was trying to track the policy shifts that have taken place in Tasmania over the last few decades, and was surprised at how hard it was to find commentary on these. I thought that it was ironic that Tasmania had cut funding to the Crafts Council of Tasmania at about the same time that similar organisation in other states had begun to inject more resources into their equivalent agencies. This seemed particularly odd in the light of Tasmania's reputation as a craft & design state ... although, when we use that word 'design', I think we still hope that it carries craft along with it. Repeat Business opens up some space for thinking about these distinctions ... at least I hope it does. I also hope that it opens up questions about the viability of craft and design practice in Tasmania.

Let me know what you think ...