Susanna Bilardo and Jacky Spencer, Craig English and Toby Thomas, Michael Geissler, Julie Pieda, Simon Zappia. Curator Joanne Cys selects new work from seven Adelaide based furniture designers, showcasing the breadth of fine furniture practice in South Australia while examining the creative and economic significance of furniture design to the state. Salon South is part of the exhibition program at the JamFactory and runs from 25 March to 28 May, 2006.

In Adelaide in 1956, furniture designer Fred Ward delivered a paper at the 6th Australian Architectural Convention on the problems of furniture design. Ward described Australian furniture design at the time as a practice severely disadvantaged by competition from cheap and poorly made product and restricted by a seemingly endless demand for stylistic copies from the past. Ward identified that these limitations of quality and innovation were, to no small extent, the result of the uncritical and ignorant patronage of the public consumer.¹

Half a century later, it could be said that the problems of contemporary furniture design are still very much the same, although the conditions and context have altered. Competition from inferior product is no longer local, but imported from other places. It is a double irony that over the last 15 years or so not only have these imports caused the death of much of the local cheap and poorly made competition but have also contributed to the demise of many of the few local and national manufacturers that did incorporate design expertise in their furniture ranges. Unintelligent copying of past styles still occurs, but now it transcends style or period and targets individual authors, in some cases, even extending their range (one is surprised to find in catalogues and showrooms apparent 'new' designs by Corbusier, Breuer and van Der Rohe). Uncritical furniture patronage continues, yet appreciation and knowledge in other comparable consumer areas such as fashion, wine and regional (food) produce appears to be increasing. Certainly there is a current political imperative to appreciate and maximise the benefits of creative practice as our government mandates fostering creativity² and becomes interested in growing creative industries.³

One problem of furniture design not identified by Ward is the complexity of scale, not just physical scale, but also of processual scale that from a consumer view-point can render designed furniture as expensive and not readily available. In terms of process and outcome, it can be proposed that furniture design lies somewhere between its kindred practices of object design (such as jewellery, glass and ceramics) and the practices of spatial design (for example interior, architecture and landscape).⁴ With design and making the common characteristics that link these practices, the physical scale of furniture is generally larger than object, yet smaller than spatial environments. It may be designed and realised by one designer-maker as objects often (although not always) are, and as spatial environments rarely (although sometimes) are. In a general commercial production sense, furniture takes more time to make than objects do, yet not as long as a building, for example, would. In fact, in its normal state, it is possible for furniture design practice to occupy a position with both object and space as well as all of the sites in-between.

The designers and furniture that comprise the Salon South exhibition represent the range of furniture design practice that is currently happening in South Australia, from designer-maker to design for manufacture and the variations in between. The exhibition was inspired by an observation made by Peter Walker, past JamFactory Studio Head of Furniture and now Associate Professor at Rhode Island School of Design.⁵ During his recent residency in Adelaide, Walker said that South Australia has no furniture design 'industry' as such, but yet it does because this is the industry - a collection of designers practicing in different ways. We should recognise this as an industry.

Craig English and Toby Thomas are both past associates of the JamFactory's antecedent Furniture Studio. Choosing to stay on as 'access studio' practitioners following their respective associateships, English and Thomas pursued furniture design opportunity through Craftsouth's 'Applied Ideas design + manufacture + markets' incubator program. In collaboration with Michael Hill and Gray Hawk, and under the management of Applied Ideas' Gregory Woods, English and Thomas had some success designing a domestic range of timber furniture for local manufacturer Willow Creek in association with local retailer Casual Living.⁶ English and Thomas' Horizon range has been designed and made by them as a precursor to explore possible future manufacture and retail opportunity in the domestic furniture market.

Michael Geissler makes and un-makes his furniture pieces a thousand times with pencil on paper (often at full scale) before they are finally manufactured only by those with whom he has built a close and reciprocal working relationship. With his formal interior design qualifications, Geissler conducts his furniture practice with a spatial and slightly performative approach. His work is as much an exploration of scale as it is an experiment in three-dimensional form.

Julie Pieda's practice has traversed from designer-maker to custom design for limited manufacture. Her tables are individually designed for residential and commercial clients and made by a local manufacturer under her exacting quality control. Pieda's boxes are an investigation into object design that plays on scale and has been logically generated from her furniture practice and knowledge of material.

Susanna Bilardo and Jacky Spencer are bilardospencer. Together they have made a valuable contribution in raising the consumer awareness and appreciation of designed furniture in South Australia. As partners (with Peter Hartung) in Now Furniture during the 1990s and early 2000s, Bilardo and Spencer re-introduced the experience of the furniture showroom to Adelaide. Not only did Now Furniture exhibit and sell contemporary furniture design from overseas, it was committed to showcasing new Australian furniture designs. Bilardospencer's new pieces are representative of their desire to express some essence of regional identity in their work, both in terms of design and making. The development of the Ripple chair occurred in collaboration with industrial designer Andrew Whittaker from Fingo⁸ who project-managed the tooling and prototyping of the chair. It is noteworthy that the specialised capability for these phases of the design process was provided by local companies who have developed as a result of South Australia's automotive manufacturing industry.

Simon Zappia's contributions to the exhibition demonstrate not just (and maybe not entirely) the diversity of his design approach, but also the generosity of his philosophy and the significance of his practice. Zappia's Downforce seating is the latest iteration of the series of seating that was commissioned for the Adelaide International Airport terminal and Melbourne's Spencer Street Station redevelopment. As an economic measure of creativity, this is arguably the most significant furniture project in the state's recent history. Zappia's Contrary Lounge is his latest example of his ongoing domestic design practice and demonstrates his commitment to also offering private consumers with a contemporary, locally manufactured design option for their homes.

Fifty years ago Ward's answer to the problems of furniture design was to call for a closer relationship between designers and manufacturers. Acknowledging that in 1956 nearly all the furniture made in Australia was made "without the benefit of a designer",⁹ Ward called for designers and manufacturers to recognise each other's paradigms and work to a common goal. Ward also saw a role for government to play in demonstrating the role of a design-aware furniture consumer.

In 2006 our local furniture design expertise is rich and varied. The furniture manufacturing industry (in the commonly understood sense of term) appears to be unable to play a significant part and the government, although with some semblance of a good intention, has yet to demonstrate that it understands the nature of creative practice in this state. The furniture industry has become very much the domain of the designers and their specialised collaborators. The Salon South now represents studio, workshop and manufacturing plant.

Joanne Cys
Curator