DESIGN

WORK 03
THE
SUPPLY
CHAIN
 DESIGN
Jonathan Ben-Tovims
Tulla Carson
Blake Griffiths
Dale Hardiman
Benja Harney
Kyoko Hashimoto
Nicolette Johnson
WORK 03
THE
Luca Lettieri
Sean O’Connell
Elliat Rich and James B. Young
Makiko Ryujin and Michael Gittings

SUPPLY
Liz Williamson
Alana Wilson
Henry Wilson

Curated by
Guy Keulemans CHAIN
Jonathan Ben-Tovims Supply chains were
Tulla Carson previously considered the
Blake Griffiths
domain of business logistics,
Dale Hardiman
Benja Harney but media exposure of their
Kyoko Hashimoto troubling conditions has made
Nicolette Johnson them a pressing concern for
Luca Lettieri Australian designers.
Sean O’Connell
Elliat Rich and James B. Young
Designwork 03 The Supply
Makiko Ryujin and Michael Gittings
Liz Williamson Chain brings leading Australian
Alana Wilson experimental designers
Henry Wilson together to demonstrate the
embodied knowledge and
Curated by capacities of creation within
Guy Keulemans
contemporary supply chains,
both local and global.
Established in 2017, Designwork is a Supply chains were
series of annual exhibitions dedicated to
showing the best Australian design in a
previously considered the
commercial gallery context. domain of business logistics,
5–23 MARCH TUE–SAT 11AM–5PM
but media exposure of their
TALK: SAT 16 MAR, 3–4pm troubling conditions has made
SOPHIE GANNON GALLERY them a pressing concern for
2 Albert St, Richmond, VIC 3121
Australian designers.
Facebook @Sophie-Gannon-Gallery
Instagram @sophiegannongallery/
Designwork 03 The Supply
Part of Melbourne Design Week 2019, an initiative
of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the Chain brings leading Australian
National Gallery of Victoria.
experimental designers
together to demonstrate the
embodied knowledge and
All photos by Andre Piguet except where noted.
capacities of creation within
Lead image by Kyoko Hashimoto, commissioned for
Designwork 03 The Supply Chain.
contemporary supply chains,
ISBN 13: 978-0-7334-3853-0
both local and global.

Guy Keulemans
Designwork 03 The Supply Chain
First coined in 1982, the term ‘supply chain’ is well recognised, but not
very accurate. The word ‘chain’ suggests a linear direction, a link from
one location to the next, or a link from one material state to another. In
truth, supply chains are not chains, but networks. Their links bifurcate
and branch into many directions as their products are made and
transported. The linear supply chain of any particular material is inter-
networked with the supply chains of the tools that shape it, the things
that package it, and the vehicles or buildings that transport or house it.
This network model of the supply chain presents some challenges for
satisfying contemporary consumer demand. Just for example, there is
a clear emerging interest in vegan furniture and homeware products,
but how can we be sure that not just the product itself, but every branch
of a product’s supply chain network is free from animal products?
The contributors to Designwork #3 have enthusiastically engaged
with research, mapping and evaluating supply chains both local and
global. Their critical contributions illustrate how contemporary supply
chains are complex, and how they are susceptible to breaking, or even
causing catastrophe. And yet, they show how there are also strategies
and alternatives that ameliorate such catastrophes, or otherwise exert
a degree of control with the power to avert their contingency.
Perhaps the first thing to acknowledge when evaluating a supply chain
is that supply chains generate waste. As a paper artist, Benja Harney’s
studio material is almost exclusively paper. Coupled with a concern,
and perhaps a doubt, that his building’s recycling services are fit and
proper, he turns his paper offcuts into furniture. Dale Hardiman takes
the concept of reuse and applies it to home-building. Construction
waste is the single largest source of waste in Australia, so Hardiman
asks, can builders make furniture themselves from the refuse of their
labour? Such uses of waste illustrate that supply chains don’t end in
the making of a single product, and perhaps don’t ever end at all, but
continue forward to include future transformations of material, both
wanted and unwanted.
Sean O’Connell, motivated by the inherent obsolescence and waste
potential of inexpensive home appliances, takes apart a humble electric
kettle. Subjecting its many components to high voltage electrical
imaging captures the idea that we should asses our materials and
products with rigorous and shocking scrutiny, even as the resulting
images create something entirely different; an insight into the para-
dimensional world of electrical life.
The inter-networking of supply chains that cross our globe is aptly
demonstrated in the research of ceramicists Alana Wilson and
Nicolette Johnson, who discover that in many glazes there are likely
to be materials from every continent on earth. Metals and minerals,
both rare and common, are sourced from the most desirable locations.
For ceramics, such supply chains are well established, even ancient,
but they are no less global for other disciplines. Makiko Ryujin and
Michael Gittings trace the journey of the iron and nickel they use in
their work from Australia to China and Canada, and back. The recalled
Takata airbags investigated by Jonathan Ben-Tovims were assembled
in Mexico, where the factory mishandled propellants. They failed to
keep proper manufacturing records, and this error complicated and
delayed the global product recall when the airbags were discovered
to be injuring motorists in collisions. Problems of distance in supply
chains, in this case lack of oversight, but in other cases labour offences
or environmental crimes, are a key reason for emerging localist agendas
both in politics and in design. Nonetheless, catastrophes lead to
opportunities: Takata, facing bankruptcy, was taken over by a Chinese
competitor. And in this exhibition, Blake Griffiths sourced leather from
the million or more fish killed in the Menindee Lakes and Darling River
earlier this year – a consequence of excessive use of water for farming.
This timely work is a dark and critical reflection of capitalist capacities
to exploit disaster.
Such disasters are strongly motivating for experimental designers. Tulla fosters their creative engagement with new international markets.
Carson takes issue with the unrelenting pace of industrial development Designers like Williamson work according to principles of ethical cross-
and proposes slow designing instead. Her choice to forgo power tools cultural supply chain engagement, as set out by initiatives such as
in the creation of her work is neither commercially practical nor easy, Sangam’s Code of Practice for Partnerships in Craft and Design.
but for a girl raised on the northern New South Wales coast it offers
Lastly, this exhibition includes works that demand control. These
a personal respite from the intensity of Sydney city living. Slowness is
designers set themselves limitations that instrumentalise their works
reflected in her use of limestone, a material formed from the bodies of
as critical responses to burgeoning supply chain problems. Elliat
sea animals over millions of years. Kyoko Hashimoto chooses to work
Rich and James B. Young argue all claims for the rights to extract,
with local sandstone and coal for similar reasons; as geologically ancient
process and ship mineral resources are suspect at the intersection of
materials she feels they command deep respect, a consequence of her
sovereignty and sustainability. The chair they carved from sandstone
Shinto influences. Hashimoto’s place-based making strategy attempts
in Alice Springs – sandstone formed under Australia’s prehistoric
to address her personal concern for distance in supply chains, but is
inland sea – is transported only virtually, reconstructed via augmented
faced with challenges. In the process of sourcing her materials from
reality technology in the gallery. Clearly the environmental aspects of
within the Sydney bio-region she discovered her kangaroo leather was
transporting such a heavy work are significant, but the work also raises
tanned using tree products grown in South Africa. Ironically, the tree is
transcultural issues. Should we only be concerned with the energy
an Australian wattle.
and material costs of supply chains, or are there cultural costs? This
Lack of transparency in supply chains is known technically as question is in the context of a chair made from a rock on a mining
‘mystification’. Many products by virtue of surface detailing or leasehold, with uncertain legal arrangements for future access, within
hidden methods of production are likewise mystified. Henry Wilson’s the unceded territory of the Arrernte nations.
contribution unmasks production processes in failed casting prototypes.
Luca Letteri then takes the position that if all supply chains beyond the
Such failures are valuable to industry because they indicate how to
designer are suspect, then a designer must use the resources of his
fix manufacturing problems. The risk when presenting such objects
own body to ensure propriety. His use of nails, blood, hair and urine
– the same risk taken by this entire exhibition perhaps – is that such
as materials of design may be, on the face of it, somewhat disquieting,
presentations don’t show the customer or consumer what they may
but is a righteous attempt to avert the suffering, catastrophe and
really want: a world free of worries. On the other hand, there is the
contingency within contemporary supply chains.
chance to illustrate material richness. This is seen in the colours and
surface effects of Wilson’s lamp, which has come straight out of the
sand mould without further finishing.
Guy Keulemans is a researcher and experimental designer at the
Material richness and richness of tradition are the themes of Liz University of New South Wales Faculty of Art & Design.
Williamson’s response to problems of textile supply chains. West
Bengalese embroiderers are economically marginalised by demand-
driven design in the fast fashion and textiles industries, and can be
financially compelled to work on low-paid, low-skilled piecework. In
order to help them preserve their traditional techniques, Williamson
Jonathan Ben-Tovims
An Ode to the Airbag, 2019
steering wheel car airbags,steel, hose, rubber dinghy air inflator, LEDs
In the form of an illuminated and pulsating tower, the piece animates
an otherwise mysterious and hidden object that is frequently in close
proximity, but only in the worst situations do we see or feel it in real life.
The airbag represents the best and worst aspects of our global
production network. It is a lifesaving piece of technology found in
every new car on the planet, but as seen in the recent Takata airbag
tragedies and subsequent product recall, it has also come to represent
the fragility and risk that a complex global supply chain creates.
Jonathan Ben-Tovim is an industrial designer who works across the
disciplines of commercial furniture and lighting, design consultancy
and conceptual design.
Tulla Carson
Gathering, Walking Patterns, 2017
native basket grass (Lomandra longfilia) fibre, linen thread, Australian
Mount Gambier limestone
Gathering, Combined Identities, 2017
alpaca fibre, linen thread, Australian Mount Gambier limestone
Gathering, Rhythms of the Land, 2017
Tasar silk fibre, linen thread, Australian Mount Gambier limestone
The Land and I, I & II, 2019
Buff Raku Trachyte, natural beeswax, linen thread, suri alpaca fibre
In her objects, Carson explores the relations of time between city and
country. She resists techniques that speed up the making process,
carving stone without power tools for example, or coiling clay instead
of wheel throwing. Her natural forms evoke a feeling of the slow and
the raw.
Although introduced from South America, alpaca populations are
expanding in Australia as their padded hoofs have less impact
on our soil ecologies than other hoofed farming animals and their
overall grazing and behavioural habits contribute to sustainable and
regenerative agriculture.
Tulla Carson is a Sydney-based designer working in ceramic, textiles
and stone.

Images this page and next supplied by Tulla Carson

Blake Griffiths
Prayer for Water Necklace, 2019
felted kangaroo fur, twinned emu feathers, quandong seeds, waxed
linen and eucalyptus wood
Wreath of the Darling Martyrs; a crown of eternal life, 2019
egg yolk & olive oil-tanned bony bream fish skin, essential oils
Using material sourced from natural processes and environmental
catastrophes, Griffiths’ work is caught up in the lexicon of water politics
and mismanagement in regional Australia.
The kangaroo fur and emu feathers are obtained from outback roadkill
– a consequence of animals displaced by the construction of the
Wentworth to Broken Hill (W2BH) pipeline.
Blake Griffiths is a textile designer and art educator with interests
in social issues and sustainability.
Dale Hardiman
37 Butler Street Chair, 2019
European oak floor boards, chipboard, pine, nails, silicone, paint
37 Butler Street Light, 2019
pine, plaster board, plaster trim, plaster, nails, paint, fluorescent light
Hardiman tests the idea that during house construction, interior
furnishings can be made at the same time using building offcuts and
waste. In this way, a home can be finished locally with less waste and
without the need to ship additional furniture or homewares.
In the form of plasterboard or drywall, gypsum presents as a most
mundane material and is one of the largest fractions of construction
waste. But this belies its vast array of uses across culture and history;
as a fertiliser, coagulant, cosmetic binder, traditional medicine, baking
ingredient, and more.
Melbourne designer Dale Hardiman co-founded furniture and object
brand Dowel Jones and collaborative project Friends & Associates; he
simultaneously produces singular works under his own name.

Image on this page supplied by Dale Hardiman

Benja Harney
Remnants, 2017
paper and polyvinyl acetate binder
Benja Harney collects boxes of paper offcuts, the remainders of many
large and colourful projects. Sorted by colour and shredded, these
remnants provide a source of material for furniture and objects.
The supply chain of paper is most commonly associated with
production from wood pulp, but prior to the mid nineteenth century
the most common material for making paper was old rags and textiles.
The industry relied on ragpickers, also known as the ‘rag and bone’
trade, an example of zero-waste culture from the early industrial era.
Benja Harney is a self-taught and internationally renowned paper
engineer.
Kyoko Hashimoto
Sandstone Musubi Neckpiece, 2019
sandstone, black wattle-tanned kangaroo skin, eucalyptus, waxed
linen
Coal Musubi Neckpiece, 2019
coal, vegetable-tanned kangaroo skin, eucalyptus, waxed linen
These neckpieces respectively use sandstone and coal locally collected
from around the Sydney basin bio-region. Sydney is internationally
known for high quality sandstone and has many significant coal seams
underground. Both materials take millennia to form within the earth. In
each neckpiece the beads are individually wrapped in kangaroo-skin
cradles and sealed in a traditional Japanese musubi knot, signifying
honour and respect for natural materials.
Black wattle is an indigenous Australian tree rich in tannins and used
for tanning leather worldwide. However, native plant regulations and
complex enviro-economic relations make it hard for local growers to
supply it, so contemporary Australian tanneries source it from South
African plantations.
Kyoko Hashimoto is a Japanese-born, Sydney-based experimental
jeweller and artist practicing place-based making.

Images this page and next supplied by Kyoko Hashimoto

Nicolette Johnson
Plated Vessel I, II & III, 2019
iron-rich stoneware, hand-sculpted protrusions, black glaze,
manganese dioxide wash
The clay body used to create these vessels is an iron-rich stoneware
commercial clay comprised of raw materials sourced from Australia
and the United States. Each vessel has between 368 and 608 hand-
sculpted protrusions.
Manganese dioxide is an inorganic compound that is used as a
colourant in ceramics. The sources of manganese distributed in
Australia include the former USSR, Brazil, South Africa, Australia,
Gabon and India.
Nicolette Johnson is a London-born, Brisbane-based ceramic artist
whose work explores symmetry, botanical motifs, and the importance
of the artefact.

Image on next page supplied by Nicolette Johnson

Luca Lettieri
Self-Portrait, 2019
silky oak (Grevillea robusta), celerytop pine (Phyllocladus
aspleniifolius), porcelain, paper pulp, polyvinyl acetate, pubic hair,
finger nails, blood, urine, faeces, saliva, semen, gold, aluminium,
brass, canvas, medium-density fibreboard, oil, pigment, shellac.
Self-Portrait utilises sustainably sourced Australian timber species
and native porcelain in conjunction with materials harvested from
the artist’s body. This piece was made in response to the sixteenth-
century German tradition of wunderkammers, in which small cabinets
housed artefacts gathered from around the world – with little regard
for the cultural and environmental implications of their collection.
Lettieri gathered hair from his body over the course of a few months,
then bleached, dyed and felted it using the traditional wet felting
technique to created draw liners. His choice to use materials harvested
from his own body is a means to become part of the supply chain and
to know the exact provenance of his resources.
Luca Lettieri is a multi-disciplinary furniture maker whose work
explores themes of functionality and context.
Sean O’Connell
Kettle light globe and leads, 20kV AC 150Hz spark discharge, 2019
Kettle heating element, 35kV DC negative spark discharge, 2019
Kettle thermostat housing, 30kV AC 120Hz spark discharge, 2019
digital prints on Canson Rag Photographique
A ubiquitous electric kettle was bought for $9 from a major department
store, then disassembled. Its materials were identified; its parts were
measured, weighed, catalogued, and finally explored through high
voltage spark discharge imaging. The extraordinary low cost of the
appliance deters any future repair, reuse, or perhaps even cleaning.
For O’Connell, such objects reveal how little we respect, or even
acknowledge, the basic materiality of the world around us.
High voltage spark discharge imaging explores materials in a unique
way, as vessels that transmit energy. The electric charges are applied
as AC in the audio range, the frequency tuned to inherent resonances
within the material and form, and then captured directly on top
of traditional photographic emulsion. In comparison to traditional
photography, which captures light reflected off the surface of a subject,
these high voltage images reveal hidden qualities that lie within matter,
beneath the surface.
Sean O’Connell is a contemporary jeweller and artist whose work is an
abstraction of the forces that are present in his life and self.

Images this page and next supplied by Sean O’Connell

Elliat Rich and James B. Young
Strata Stratum Stratus, 2019
Central Australian sandstone, photography, AR portal
Current supply chains function on a foundation of invisible and often
contested power held by those who have access and/or rights over
land and its resources. As raw materials flow from origin to market
along complex routes this power is often imposed and not without
consequences. Strata Stratum Stratus seeks to reveal the power
structures in relation to one material, in one place at a moment in time.
By remaining in-situ, to be bought but never truly possessed, this
sandstone work draws into focus layers of significance that are too-
often ignored or overlooked, returning agency to the place, the rock,
existing value systems and our presence in the landscape.
Elliat Rich and James B. Young create together as Elbow Workshop.
Through research, insight and conversations they embed story about
their place into materials and form.

Image on next and following page supplied by Elliat Rich and James B Young
Strata Stratum Stratus, work in process of in situ carving
Strata Stratum Stratus, work in process of photogrammetric digitisation
Makiko Ryujin and Michael Gittings
Impermanence, 2019
eucalyptus, steel, nickel plating, glass, lighting components
This piece uses eucalyptus sourced from the western suburbs of
Melbourne and steel that was produced in China from iron ore mined
in Australia, with nickel plating done in Melbourne using nickel that
was mined in Australia and processed in Canada.
Tasmanian blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) is a tree that is native to
Australia and is now commercially grown around the world. It makes
up 50% of Australia’s forestry crop and is highly regarded for its quick
growth. Common uses for the harvested tree are wood chips, paper
and medium-density fibreboard. The paper, once used, can then be
recycled to be used again in another form.
Makiko Ryujin is a Japanese-born, Melbourne-based woodturner and
designer practicing experimental technique.
Michael Gittings is a Melbourne-based artist working in the field of
collectable design.

Images on next page supplied Makiko Ryujin and Michael Gittings

Liz Williamson
Alanakar: earth lines 2 & 3, 2015
Alanakar: kalam, 2015
Alanakar: seeds, 2014
Alanakar: circles, 2014
silk and cotton embroidery dyed with blackbutt, silver dollar and/or
logwood
Alanakar is a Hindi word translating as tracery, adornment or
decoration. In these works, Williamson’s drawings of textiles structures
and woven interlacing have been translated into aari embroidery as
part of an experimental collaboration with artisans in West Bengal.
Aari embroidery uses a small hooked awl which is adapted from a
shoemaker’s larger awl. It is similar to the tambour hook used in Europe
and a crochet nook.
Logwood was a prominent dye prior to last century, with logwood supply
chains once controlled by Caribbean pirates. Still used for histological
staining in biology, logwood is re-growing in popularity among textile
designers as an alternative to petrochemical dyes.
Liz Williamson is an internationally known textile artist whose practice
began in the late 1970s, and more recently engages with artisan
groups in Asia.

Image this page supplied by Liz Williamson

Alana Wilson
Perforated Barium Ritual Vessel, 2019
terracotta paper clay with burnt umber stoneware glazes and barium
wash

Sandblasted Bell Amphora, 2019

terracotta paper clay with reactive stoneware glazes
Beaten CuO Halo Vessel, 2019
terracotta paper clay with beaten copper oxide halo, cobalt stoneware
glaze and shell impressions
Alana Wilson’s experimental glazes use materials from all over the
world, such as nepheline syenite mined in Brazil, China and Sweden,
and barium and dolomite, mined in Australia. Her research uncovers
the global supply chains of ceramic materials, centuries-old and still
flourishing.
A key ingredient in ceramic glazes, calcium carbonate comprises more
than 4% of the earth’s crust and is found throughout the world. Its most
common natural forms are chalk, limestone and marble, produced by
the sedimentation of the shells of small fossilised snails, shellfish and
coral over millions of years.
Alana Wilson is a Sydney-based ceramicist creating handmade
vessels with experimental glaze technology.
Henry Wilson
Surface Sconce, 2019
Surface Sconce, failed sandcast prototype, 2017
Brass Oil Burner & failed investment casting tree, 2018
bronze
Wilson’s Surface Sconces are made from casting bronze in oil-
impregnated sand moulds. The failed prototype helps the manufacturer
resolve the casting process and incidentally illustrates the beautiful
range of colours and textures that can emerge when the molten metal
hits the sand.
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, metals with a long historical
marriage. Within metallurgical processes, the tin serves to tame the
explosive qualities of copper when molten.
Henry Wilson is a Sydney-based product and interior designer.