This extract includes the introductory and concluding paragraphs from curator Grace Cochrane's essay in the publication, Smart works: design and the handmade. Order your copy

Following the extract, is the text of the six 'Issues' panels that form part of the exhibition. The panels identify some of the questions these exhibitors ask themselves, when making decisions about putting their work into production.

Smart works is about design that reflects the values of the handmade. It looks at the decisions that a number of imaginative and enterprising people are making in putting handmade work into production. What has the handmade to do with design and industry these days? The reach of industry is increasingly global, and the handmade is, well - so personal and local. Or is it?

In 2005, businessman and cultural advocate Evan Thornley spoke about innovation in the Australian workplace and the critical need for investment in education, skilled labour and infrastructure for a sustainable approach to Australia's industries. He pointed out that:

   "We're one of the smallest and by far the most isolated economy in the developed world. Logically we'd need to be one of its best exporters ... Put simply, in a global economy, the big get bigger and the meek do not inherit the Earth ... Without scale the game gets hard. And for Australia, that means exports, because we can't get scale in our domestic market alone."

For those working on a small scale, like those represented in Smart works, one solution is to enter that global manufacturing and marketing system in some way. Another, more likely, option is to offer something that is of higher value and produced in smaller runs that reaches a particular discerning market both at home and elsewhere. And the game is hard, but often rewarding and distinctive.

For the 40 individuals or groups from Australia and New Zealand that are featured in Smart works, their understanding of materials and technologies is essential to the success of their designs. Audiences who seek their work also want tangible personal associations with objects, through the way they look and feel and through knowing who made them. These designers and makers value their skills and many have made lifelong commitments to a materials-based practice, often making one-off or limited series work for a specialised marketplace at home and overseas. However, they also like to design objects for production, and Smart works documents the many different ways in which they have researched solutions and made their decisions. It looks at the choices open to them and the ways they are meeting the challenges and opportunities provided by their relatively small local markets, their distant location from others, and the varied manufacturing capabilities of their region. [... 2000 words]

Initiatives in Australia and New Zealand

Within this broad framework of change, many Australians and New Zealanders are already resourceful designers and makers and are experienced in small manufacturing at home. [...]

One particular characteristic of the present time is the emergence of highly skilled specialist industries to which designer-makers can turn with confidence. Following the model of industries like car manufacturers, using out-sourced skills and 'just-in-time production', skilled artisans are developing unique businesses that focus on a particular technology, such as laser or water-jet cutting, digital printing and prototyping, resin prototyping, metal casting and pressing or computerised textile weaving. Smart works uncovers many exemplary and unusual collaborations with smart industries and agents in Australasia as well as elsewhere in the world, who themselves are enjoying the exchanges that develop. [...]

The participants in Smart works come from very different starting points, and work in many different materials to make objects for diverse markets. Their paths reflect the global issues discussed in this essay. Some make everything by hand, working in their studios and sometimes hiring in skilled assistance, or renting workshop time, while a number find their solution to production in providing local employment. Most combine traditional skills with a wide range of new technologies and many have devised or adapted their own tools and technologies. An increasing number who have always made all their components, now contract out parts to a specialist local industry. Some have developed amazing liaisons with skilled industries who themselves have become fascinated with the new challenges, and some have even established their own industries to produce materials that others can use. Others now make prototypes and collaborate with skilled people in other countries. And many are involved in mentorships of younger generations, or are engaged in formal education.

Most noticeable, in the development of this exhibition, is the passion and determination of each of these people to develop their skills, and pursue their interests and dreams within the reality of developing viable and sustainable designing and making businesses or working practices. And equally impressive is their remarkable and engaging willingness to meet skilled industry half-way, to listen to and learn from what those particular specialists know and can offer, and to develop what become mutual challenges, as their design ideas become objects.

They're smart. Smart works.

Grace Cochrane

'Introduction' and 'Issues' panels, in the exhibition Smart works: design and the handmade, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. (Author Grace Cochrane)

Smart Works: design and the handmade

This exhibition explores the work and world of around 40 enterprising designers and makers from Australia and New Zealand.

Central to what they do is their interest in the values of making objects by hand ... and their enjoyment of the materials and crafts processes they use. They like making one-off works, but also want to put their ideas into production.

Smart works looks at the key questions these craftspeople and designers are asking. It examines the choices they are making in response to the challenges and opportunities provided by their location, their market place and the manufacturing capabilities of their region.

Making choices:

Here or there: working in other countries

In the West, crafts-based industries are closing, with the loss of skills and sometimes cultural identity. The new manufacturing economies are in Asia, South America, Africa and Eastern Europe. Here skilled labour is cheaper and workers have often been exploited. Yet they also want to be modern and to make a better living from their work. Some designers decide to have some of their work produced in these countries. And sometimes industries in those countries commission foreign designers to develop new products for them.

They must ask:

'The entrepreneurial nature of these women is the most exciting surprise ... We have watched women who were silent transform into strong characters who know how to value their time and effort.'

Cathy Braid and Kirsten Ainsworth, from Caravana, on working in Pakistan, 2006.

Making choices:

Knowing about materials: does it matter?

These designers know how to make their work themselves. They know how materials behave, what tools to use and what shapes are possible. At the same time, they now have the option to design with computers and contract their work to skilled specialists.

They must ask:

'I don't draw an ideological line between my oneoff works and F!NK ... I have learned to see them as notions of operation, that dwell on a sliding scale between objects only made possible via handmaking, through to the objects only made possible by manufacturing technology.'

Robert Foster, on metalworking, 2005.

'Going into the factory ... and seeing hundreds of my cups, teapots and pourers lined up ... everything carefully finished and 'signed' with a stamp. And yet ... every piece in the factory is identical ... I now know that I am thrilled by repetition.'

Janet DeBoos, on working in China, 2006.

Making choices:

Collaboration: gain or loss?

Artists and craftspeople like to express their personal ideas through their handmade work. Designers - whether anonymous or household names - are usually associated with industrial production. Cutting, moulding, rapid prototyping, printing, polishing, casting ... More and more designers and makers are seeking specialist industries that can help with part of the process. They value those personal working relationships and talk about a two-way process of development.

They must ask:

'Collaboration is about making the whole greater than the sum of its parts ... where I can do what I do well and unite it with the strengths of another process, material or individual ... The high level of skilled craft existing within industrial settings makes me seek opportunities where it could be given greater expression.'

Oliver Smith, on working with metal industries, 2006.

Making choices:

Finding a marketplace: local or global?

Australia and New Zealand are remote from current - and changing - manufacturing centres, and competition in global markets is challenging for designers and makers.

They must ask:

'The ideal would be to be based in Australia, to have my own company, and be outward-looking towards the world .. to keep existing contacts in Mexico and develop others in Europe and Asia.'

Jonathan Baskett, on licensing production of glass, 2006.

'Ceramica di Manfredi was born of a desire to work with Australian designers, to create special pieces for the table that fill this gap between the established great classics and the low-grade copies flooding the market.'

Julie Manfredi-Hughes, on working with Rod Bamford and ceramic factories in Asia, 2006.

Making choices:

Being sustainable ... and viable

Water, forests, minerals, pollution, chemicals, supply of raw materials, climate change ... designers and makers are increasingly aware of their responsibilities towards a sustainable future.

They must ask:

'A real excitement is our research into using a new bio-polymer as a binder. The resins we use now are petroleum-based, but the aim is to use as much waste material as possible while being 100% organic.'

Marc Harrison, on making Husque bowls, 2006.

Making choices:

Technologies: between old and new

Craftspeople have always adopted new technologies ... from the invention of the wheel to the use of electricity and space age materials. So taking on computer-aided design and manufacturing technologies and new communication tools is really no different. But is it still important to have traditional skills and understand their technologies?

They must ask:

'The computer is critical to every aspect of what I do ... it's a tool for drawing, making and communicating. [But] however efficient computers are, CAD [computer-aided design] can never work unless it is based on solid material knowledge. You can't design for materials that you don't understand and know how work.'

David Trubridge, on designing with timber, 2006.