Local ambitions
The lightbulb moment happened on November 10 2011 when, having recently returned to Australia after 20 years living abroad, I found myself at the launch of the first Broached Commissions collection in a disused film facility in Sydney’s Surry Hills. Until that second, I’d been wondering what ‘Australian design’ might look like. And there was an answer: the work on show included a tea set made from lacquered kelp and kangaroo pelt, a lushly polished tallboy devised along the lines of rustic outback structures, and a towering tripodal floor lamp the legs, stem and head of which were covered in thousands of hand-dyed toothpicks to evoke the psychological carapace of convict women who managed to survive transportation from Britain.
Deeply thoughtful, supremely crafted and responding
