Official opening by Helen O'Neil

Return to index of past exhibitions

Embracing innovation, Covert Jewels - Cinnamon Lee, Machine in the Garden - Christine Cholewa and Harvest - Kimberley Dixon were officially opened by Helen O'Neil, Advisor to the Minister for the Arts, Mr Simon Crean MP on Thursday 31 March 2011.

Previously Helen was the Executive Director of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences where she led the discussion for inclusion of design research knowledge into government policy. Helen was a guest speaker at the recent launch of the Australian Design Alliance where she spoke about design research and its links to industry. She has held the positions of Executive Director at Australian Major Performing Arts Group, Marketing and Communications Director at Opera Australia and Communications Policy Adviser for News Limited.

» See also: the article, Innovation reclaimed, written by Glen Martin.

Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre

31 March 2011

Thank you so much for inviting me here to speak. It is a very real privilege for me to be included in the opening of these exhibitions. These exhibitions are for me a very exciting step in the process of turning concepts like ‘innovation' and ‘creativity' into practice.

For a few years now innovation has been one of those management buzz words, thrown around in publications from the Harvard Business Review to Art Monthly, and in speeches from politicians and business leaders on an almost daily basis.

I don't want to denigrate this verbal activity - buzz words can have real meaning. The politicians and cultural leaders have identified a really important value and process to use in changing how we think about economic and social reform and growth.

They know more than most that new technologies, the speed and reach of communications, and environmental challenges require Australian society and Australians to rethink how they live, how they create and make and service their society. And then do something innovative based on this new thinking.

Indeed there has been a government inquiry into the issues and boost to research spending as part of a national innovation strategy dubbed Powering Ideas.

What the leaders of this country need now is the artist-researcher's whose work is in this exhibition today. Why? Well there is another buzz phrase floating around the innovation policy world - creative solutions.

Artists are increasingly slipping into the world of research, and technology based researchers are learning to work with artists in the quest for creative solutions. In the olden days craftsmen used practice led research in workshops, experimenting, proving, discarding and developing as a time honoured tradition. Their learning and experience passed on to students and apprenticeships.

In a global economy, and a design world linked to new communications and virtual visioning practice-led research is an astonishing array of emerging work and processes.

Not all the work here today, I am prepared to bet, is successful. But it is absolutely vital to the process of experimentation and learning that is central to this new world of innovation

I want to say to the researcher-designers-artists who are creating new ideas, discovering how to realise them, and documenting the process, that I couldn't imaging a more exciting space to work in.

I worked with Avi Amesbury at the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences where increasingly we found that old style scientists were interested in artistic problems and the connections between an object or design and the people reacting them - people from CSIRO and others.

So here is the Craft and Design Centre providing a forum for conversations and knowledge sharing around this artistic necessity of making a connection between creativity and people.

At the heart of it is the research issue.

So today I want to celebrate the bringing of practice-led research into the mainstream of Australia's national innovation system. A process at the heart of artistic practise is now entrenching itself in research in our universities and sought after by manufacturers and service industries.

I don't know how gallery attendees will develop an aesthetic language to deal with process rather than the finished object or art work. But no doubt we can innovate in this area too.

I am a word person - brought up in a book publishing family, trained as a journalist and writer. My craft is in this slippery world of words and stories. I know about the constant repetitions and practice needed to turn an idea into a story. And I find that process endlessly fascinating.

These exhibitions, Embracing innovation, Covert Jewels - Cinnamon Lee and Machine in the Garden - Christine Cholewa give us a door into this work of craft meeting creativity, around the hard work of practice.

It is with great pleasure I open these three exhibitions.

Images

1. Helen O'Neil, Advisor to the Minister for the Arts, Mr Simon Crean MP giving her opening speech
2. A guest viewing Christine Cholewa, The Long Road (detail), 2011, side view truck mirrors, metal brackets, etched
3. Gilbert Riedelbauch and other guests chatting at the exhibition opening around Covert Jewels installation
4. Guests view Christine Cholewa, From the Garden, 2011, hand blown glass, etched, magnetic backing
5. Guests view Covert Jewels installation by Cinnamon Lee
6. Helen O'Neil, Advisor to the Minister for the Arts, Mr Simon Crean MP mingling with guests beside A LA LATA (lounge chair) by Dr Carlos Montana-Hoyos, 2006, aluminium tube frame, textile made with repurposed can tabs and zip ties.

All images were taken at the official opening of the exhibitions on Thursday 31 March 2011.
All photographs copyright: Art Atelier Photography.