Conscious Craft is a growing movement with a powerful impact

Australian artists and designers tackle the sustainability crisis through material applications with commercial viability.
Young man and woman in garbage dump finding materials for design projects. Pit Projects.

Craft Victoria has announced two exhibitions that put sustainability and the environment first. While that hardly feels like a new curatorial premise today, what is exciting about this pairing of exhibitions is the way it shifts the language around material and reuse as design-driven objects with viable commercial applications.

Simply, these objects read as high-end pieces – their materiality just deepens the dialogue. For example, collaborative duo Pit Projects (Anni Hagberg and Michael Gittings) work with materials scavenged from illegal tips, while Locki Humphrey creates leather alternatives from the noxious weed, prickly pear.

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Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's National Visual Arts Editor. For a decade she worked as a freelance writer and curator across Southeast Asia and was previously the Regional Contributing Editor for Hong Kong based magazines Asian Art News and World Sculpture News. Prior to writing she worked as an arts manager in America and Australia for 14 years, including the regional gallery, biennale and commercial sectors. She is based in Mittagong, regional NSW. Twitter: @ginafairley Instagram: fairleygina