BROACHED EAST

Through an obscure doorway on Melbourne’s busy Bourke Street, and up a rattling old elevator to the seventh floor, you will find the Broached Commissions gallery, an intimate, simple and austere space that houses one of Australia’s most exciting and promising design companies. Founded in 2011, Broached features a permanent founding body of three of Australia’s best designers, Trent Jansen, Adam Goodrum and Charles Wilson. Each year, they are joined by a number of guest designers to develop an exclusive design collection imbued in Australian history and flavoured with heavily researched events and narratives from past eras.

On exhibition is Broached East, a collection of furniture and lighting that explores Australia’s relationship with Asia around the mid to late 19th century. The pieces focus primarily on the influx of Chinese migrant workers to Australia during the goldrush, and the obsession with Japanese artifacts after the Meiji Restoration. As Creative Director Lou Weis clarified, these are periods that greatly interest him because of the contradiction between Australia’s fierce resistance against Asian migration whilst nurturing an ongoing passion for Asian culture and art – an irony that escapes most Australians.

Weis is innately passionate about exploring the potential of Australian design, but is equally committed to exploring relationships with international designers, makers and manufacturers. Inviting Japanese floral artist Azuma Makoto, Japanese architect and designer Keiji Ashizawa, and Chinese designer/maker Naihan Li to join the three permanent designers, Broached East references industry, trade relations, wealth and industrial design, while drawing on highly personal narratives and intimate stories from the era.

The collection features Ashizawa’s suspended Ellipse light, Jansen’s Chinaman’s File Rocking Chair, Goodrum’s Inside Out Cabinet, Makoto’s Paludarium Shigelu case, Li’s Armillary Whiskey Bar, and Wilson’s Broached East Dressing Table. The six pieces in the collection speak for themselves through form, function and use of materials, but the floor sheet or, if you are lucky, a personal tour with Weis offers much greater insight into the conceptual considerations behind the design. These concepts range from the tale of Chinese migrants walking for 25 days in single file from South Australia to the goldfields, to the wealthy Chinese entrepreneur enjoying a drink at the end of the day as he reflects on his prosperity, to making comment on the trade relations between Japan and Australia. These concepts throw a new light on the pieces, giving them an inherent value that transports them to the edge of design, crossing over somewhere into the realm of limited edition art.

There is an interesting balance between cultures that has been acknowledged throughout the production and manufacture of the collection. Rather than finding an Australian craftsman, the Whiskey Bar, Rocking Chair and Cabinet have all been manufactured in Li’s woodworking studio. The workshop is one of very few small-scale operations in China, enabling Li to focus on the attention to detail, which shows through in the fine craftsmanship and handling of the timber. Makoto’s Paludarium inverts our expectations, choosing to display an Australian grown bonsai in a Japanese-made box, presenting the Australian-made component as the main feature, rather than drawing attention to the case itself (although considering the scale of the case, it’s near impossible to ignore). The Ellipse light is the only Australian produced piece, manufactured by local lighting company Rakumba, making further comment on the countries’ trade relationship.

It appears however, that this reliance on manufacturing overseas is not without its problems. Many of the pieces in the collection did not appear to have been fully refined in time for the exhibition opening, with several design considerations seemingly unresolved. The joints on Goodrum’s Cabinet that enable it’s clever design capabilities had begun to break, while the legs on the Rocking Chair had not been resolved to mimic the rocking motion intended. Wilson’s Broached East Dressing Table was not on show, nor featured on the Broached website, leaving me to question whether it was even finished in time for the exhibition.

Despite these unresolved issues in the prototypes, Weis sees this collection as a facilitator for a meaningful dialogue and further collaboration between designers and manufactures across countries. Personally, I would normally advocate for keeping production on Australian shores, but there is certainly a need for developing these designer/maker relationships within an increasingly globalised industry, particularly if Australian design is to be acknowledged and valued as a capable international force. Weis and the founding designers have placed Broached Commissions in a unique position where it is capable of attracting renowned designers and artists who are contributing to an international dialogue around Australian design. These networks and relationships have the power to launch Broached, and consequently the Australian design industry, to international heights, showing that Australian designers have what it takes to compete with the best designers in the world.