MAKING MAKING WORK WORK

The German artist and cultural activist Joesph Beuys was in a way famous for saying, “Every human being is an artist” and he was not making any distinction between 'artist' ... 'craftsperson' ... 'crafter' ... 'maker' ... 'designer maker'. The WORDstruggle of the time is palpable!

Bueys also said that “To be a teacher is my greatest work of art” and at the time he was saying this and advocating change post WW2 the vacuous ART V's CRAFT [Link] debate raged on.  In the world of 'making' almost no attention given to Beuys et al, despite the fact that their 'work' has changed CULTURAL landscapesˆ. Bueys' work, and in particular his 7,000 Oaks Project in Kassel set change in progress and it is an exemplar placemaking with international significance.

The so-called 'International Crafts Movement' (ICM) in many ways was a continuation of the  Arts and Crafts movement post the Industrial Revolution in Europe. That 'movement' did not promote a particular style, but it did advocate reform as part of its philosophy and instigated a critique of industrial labor; as modern machines replaced workers. Arts and Crafts proponents called for an end to the division of labor and advanced the designer as craftsman and by extension the preservation of traditional sensibilities and sensitivities. In large part Arts and Crafts proponents looked towards restoring/maintaining 'traditional' training methods and approaches. That is traditional Eurocentric sensibilities albeit that Europeans via their colonialism were being increasingly exposed to somewhat different sensibilities.

However, the ICM by-and-large became embroiled in winning the kind of recognition 'artists' were seen to receive – the status, the wealth etc. Also, somewhat like the 'Modernists'  ICM was involved in eclectic cultural appropriation with inspiration drawn from beyond the assumed homologous, blended, and blanded Western FREEworld – most often from exotic-and-other cultures plus indigenous cultural realities.

The  ICM was, arguably, caught up in COLDwar sensibilities. The publication 'Craft Horizons' figured large in this space, as did Rose Slivka,[LINK], and arguably Craft Horizons as a vector for notions of that great big CULTURALmeltingpot that was often used to describe the cultural integration of immigrants to the the USA – and often in regard to a worldwide sensibility. Moreover, postcolonial sensibilities that had not yet challenged the cultural appropriation exotic cultural production. Thus the assumptions of Western cultural enlightenment and its precedence prevailed. These perceptions needed to be challenged, and have been, which is interesting when we come to the ICM and considering it in relation to CULTURALlandscapes, relative to current cultural realities and placedness in an essentially 20th C context. Somewhat coincidentally Craft Horizons was first published in 1941 albeit that it'd be drawing a very long bow to suggest that Winifred West might have been aware of that or was in any way influenced by the publication.

Again, it is not within the scope of this conversation to tease all that out, and speculatively there are many PhD's that might yet be launched when such interrogations will no doubt cast more light on the post WW2 CULTURALlandscape. After all this there are THEcollections held by institutions and musingplaces. The attendant and in-built politics here is something to be dealt with as the means to engage with change has itself changed. Alice Proctor's book The Whole Picture confronts issues that musingplaces are often reluctant to deal with in the context of postcolonialism and the aftermath of colonialism. Alice Proctor offered unofficial gallery tours where she confronted institutions with their colonial acquisitions, ownership matters and the facilitation of cultural appropriation.

The status quoists and the preservationists are now confronted with a critical discourse that challenges once fundamental and comfortable 'givens'. By doubting we are led to question, by questioning we might well arrive at truth's door. Long ago The Buddha realised that there were just three things that couldn't be hidden ... The Sun, The Moon, and The Truth.

The decision made by Winifred West Schools' Board of Governors to "pause Sturt" comes loaded with subtexts to do with 'making' in a 21st Context. Superficially at least the decision bears all the hallmarks of managerialism, corporatisation and economic rationalism and it is what it is.

Mostly, and when thinking about 'making', the action is reflective of much of what has been evolving in regard to 'the world of makers' over almost half a century. The apprenticeship system has become somewhat moribund; technical and further education has been rationalised; universities have become increasingly vocation oriented; arts funding has been rationalised; and in the light of all this industry has trended towards claiming the high ground. Culturally, there is at the very least a layer of dystopia in evidence in all this not that utopia was ever there in reality.

That said, for over 80 years Sturt has been a 'place' where a kind of utopia might be imagined: that is a society with perfection. Anyway what’s the best kind of utopianism? So is such of current future thinking and it can be concluded that our system is run by dreamers who call themselves realists – and that is an argument that's too big for this conversation.

Suffice to say that Thomas More’s Utopia, written 500 years ago is astonishingly radical stuff. Not many people in government have denounced private property, advocated a form of communism and described the current social order as a “conspiracy of the rich”. In More’s Utopia, some noblemen were denounced as “greedy, unscrupulous and useless”. He complains, that they lived like drones on the labour of others. Monarchs, governments now, he argued, would do well to swear at their inauguration never to have more than a limited amount of gold in their coffers. To be sure More’s Utopia, is not bedside reading in Buckingham Palace or at the bedside of many of Australia's corporate giants – if any at all.

Instead of being worshipped, gold and silver should be, as More suggests, used to make chamber pots. More denounced war as being only fit only for beasts, and thus he suggested that standing armies should be disbanded. He also suggests that labour should be reduced to a minimum, and that workers – makers among them perhaps – would use some of their leisure time to attend public lectures etc.

If Thomas More were to be restored to life and to be found in an Australian parliament as the Member for Xplace, his world view would no doubt float like a LEADballoon. With that in mind 'Making Utopia' or 'Making in Utopia' might well be something to work towards without any real expectation of an arrival.

In so many ways the Winifred West Schools Governors' (AKA Frensham Governors') STURTdecision is dystopic. Made as it has been in the shadow of a utopian endeavour it is a saddening outcome but in some ways it is not all that surprising given all that has led up to it. Yet it is what it is.

 At this point it is worth noting that Prof Brian Schmidt, Nobel Laureate in Physics & past ANU Vice Chancellor, some time ago made the point that, paraphrased, 'universities ceased to be the GATEkeepers and the curators of knowledge since the late 1980s'. By extension he was speaking subliminally for museums and other research institutions. Subliminally this understanding has arguably influenced universities exiting studio programs for 'makers' in the arts and all too often in architecture as well.

Albeit a tongue twisting proposition, making, making work, 'work/workable' in a 21st C context requires something more than tweaking the status quo. Makers are currently operating in a somewhat hostile CULTURALlandscape and the STURTdecision is repeated and repeatable elsewhere. What is so concerning is the diminishing OXEGENsupply in the bureaucratic atmosphere within which such decision making goes on. Having once been the recipient of advice from a CIVICplanner that CULTURALlandscaping "is a noun, not a doing word" it was astonishing advice. It is/was edifying advice too in the context of cultural geography to say the least. It speaks rather loudly about status quoism, managerialism and bureaucratic mindsets and what is invested in all of it one way or another.

CULTURALlandscapers, researchers, critical thinkers, and indeed makers too need to know that such distorted thinking is entertained in the corridors of managerialism. Around the executive's water coolers is where subliminal message making goes on in preparation for the bureaucratic PLACEshaping in hand. It is where the purposefulness of strategic planning is massaged. All too often it turns out that purposeful visions are lost sight of or just fade away almost silently.

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