The NGV’s designing women exhibition presents the role of female designers as significant in contemporary design. It demonstrated that female designers always be ignored in a male-dominated industry so they try to design something iconic and inspiring works to increase their status, recognize their skills and thinking in society.[1] Female designers have challenged gender prejudice from the past until today, its result is really clear to show many women have their important position and value in the design area nowadays.
One of the works included in designing women exhibition is Weaver(Fig.1) which is designed by Elliat Rich. When I first saw Weaver, I still could not recognize what is it but think as abstract art. The first impression is about the hair with extremely catching-eye light green color, I think there is a connection between women aesthetic and the sculpture. Rich said that “Weaver is a cylindrical shelf suspended from the ceiling that is covered in a curtain of turquoise synthetic fibre-the kind which is used in wigs. There are four shelves inside are coated in pearlescent chameleon paint that glitters, becoming iridescent as the light falls on it.”[2] The curtain hair and the synthetic material are so powerful and attractive. “Its magnetic qualities are strengthened by the practical utility of the piece.”[3] It also looks like a girl with the curtain hair being attached behind a metallic ‘ear’.[4] I feel like as Rich said that the gesture of pulling the hair behind the metallic ear is quite intimate and it is like an existing person that have personality and emotion of it. Also, we almost like having a relationship talking to each other.
Another information that Rich indicated that the whole shape of an oval is an inspiration from The Matrix’s red pill/blue pill(Fig.2). In my opinion, because taking a blue pill in that scenario means when you wake up in your bed and you just believe whatever you want to trust. I think the reason why Rich designed the form almost like a blue pill is that Rich has mentioned before her design is trying to inspire people to think and also let audiences to think about their thought of “what vision for the future”[5] they want to tell. Therefore, Rich has used the visual expression to suggest people think their own judgment towards the artwork and firmly believe in their design position. That is what I think about the communication that blue pill wants to indicate initially. Furthermore, Rich has demonstrated the blue pill in the film if people ingest it would “ensure a life of insensate complacency”.[6] Therefore, Rich suggests viewers consider the brighter and hopeful future involve the important people, places and events what matter the most in the design aspect.[7] Weaver is shown trying to find the path of being in the future.
Rich’s work is about telling her own story. She had experience traveled to Central Australia. She transferred the characteristic and landscape of the view to her design practice. “Elliat Rich’s work is about understanding and valuing places and revealing the material of landscape,” says Ewan McEoin, Senior Curator of the Contemporary Design and Architecture Department at the National Gallery of Victoria.[8] Weaver is one of Other Place series, it interprets the broad central Australian landscape by Rich had spent lots of times to investigate. Other Places have included long time observations, imagined myths and desired futures[9] to design thinking. Weaver is allowed audiences to be curious and feel joyful, inspire people to think more about the future because “the future is linked to now.”[10] According to Rich, Weaver is using design as a way of storytelling and means of navigating toward the future.”[11] It challenges people to think different variety of opinions towards the vision of the future, or could just be curious people to what is about the design story behind the work. In fact, Rich has no exact answers for it, but anyone who has potential in design creative field to decide unexpected propositions then can lead other people who have common in it, which means can lead to collective consensus.
From this view, I understand no matter the exact answer of the vision of future is, but the important part is Weaver offers an opportunity to people could be gathering around to think and discuss the same topic to present their own definition of the visions of future. Like the process of Rich constructing Weaver with the burlesque costume and set designer Bryn Meredith and the industrial designer George Gelagotis which are both Melbourne-based. The three designers are all contact through email and FaceTime, talking about their manufacturing ideas. Rich indicated that I want to inspire people, we don’t know what it looks like but it’s exciting to think about and we’re all going to get there together and it’s going to be great.[12] I think the process is part of the concept of Weaver, it could be explained that it provides a chance of gathering people around to have their considerations and feelings from a artwork or perhaps a design ideology behind the work.
Base on this point, I want to focus on people have different opinions of Weaver that conveys to them. Bourdieu claims that, “(Bling) liberates us from conventions and opens us up for creativity and a zest for life.”[13] I think Weaver could be the form that liberates us and open our thoughts of the visions of the future. What makes Weaver so drawn me to it, it because the story, the design ideology behind this work really inspiring me to think more. It relates to Plato’s thesis, a thought is what really counts and what preserves beauty, refinement, tastefulness.[14] Therefore, Weaver presents its own ideology aesthetic of design practice and becomes a success artwork not only is promoted by designer’s idea expressions but also focus more on what Weaver does for the audiences rather than what is Weaver itself.[15] By seeing through this way, maybe it could see Weaver provide us a broad space to think and also interact with each other.
Perhaps Weaver could be considered as a participatory design. It involves individuals to challenge their own thought in various way and the decisions may affect them.[16] Even though people could not join in the beginning of the design process but can encompass their different opinions from weaver which is no exact answer from those. Another message from Weaver is to attract people to produce their unique ideas and being together, this might be considered as a way of “redirective practice”[17].
Overall, Weaver
has combined functional, women aesthetic, the material of landscape and the
main ideology behind which is inspiring people to think the visions towards the
future. Not only is a function furniture shelf but also is a strong idea that
is emphasis on the beauty and how people communicate with the thoughts behind
the object. Moreover, Weaver is
provided an opportunity and
considered as a participatory design to challenge people to think their own design propositions
towards the visions of the future and gathering people together to share their
different opinions. It also offers us open a broad design thinking to reach an
innovative thought.
Footnotes
[1] ngv.vic.gov.au, (2018). Designing women exhibition at NGV.[online] Available at https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/designing-women/ [Accessed 27 Sep 18].
[2] grazia.com.au. [online] Available at: https://grazia.com.au/articles/elliat-rich-interview/
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] grazia.com.au. [online] Available at: https://grazia.com.au/articles/elliat-rich-interview/
[9] elliatrich.com [online] Available at: http://www.elliatrich.com/other-places
[10] grazia.com.au. [online] Available at: https://grazia.com.au/articles/elliat-rich-interview/
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Despina Christoforidou, Elin Olander, Anders Warell, and Lisbeth Svengren Holm. “Good Taste Vs. Good Design: A Tug Of War In The Light Of Bling,” The Design Journal 15, no. 2 (2012): 197.
[14] Ibid.,188.
[15] Ibid.,198.
[16] Matthew Holt, (2015) Tranformation of the Aesthetic: Art as Participatory Design, Design and Culture. 7:2. p.148.
[17] Ibid.,151.
Design Research 
At the beginning of the article, the purpose of this exhibition is briefly introduced. Women want to have more value and status in today’s society, and more people pay attention to their works. Then the author introduced a designer Elliat Rich and her work separately. When I first saw this work, I thought it was a bird cage, then through the author’s introduction I know it is both a cabinet of curiosity and a sculpture in equal measure.
This art work is the beginning of a body of work exploring ways of being in the future. The design also looks like a blue pill, I quite agree with the author Elliat Rich want to people consider the possibilities of brighter, more hopeful future navigated toward with the aid of design. Her art work wants to inspire people to think.
Moreover, author has told that us that Elliat Rich combines her design work with Australia’s natural scenery. I think it’s a very good innovation. It can make people who have never seen Australia have a lot of fantasies about Australia’s natural landscape. Elliat Rich’s work is about understanding and valuing places and revealing the material of landscape.
An art work becomes a success artwork not only is promoted by designer’s idea expressions but also focus more on what art work does for the audiences rather than what is the art work itself. So through the author’s careful introduction of this work, I think it’s a good design.
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