The ADC On Tour exhibition Resolved: Journeys in Australian Design recently finished it's three year tour at JamFactory in Adelaide. ADC's Lisa Cahill spoke to Brian Parkes is the CEO of JamFactory to talk about Resolved, what makes a successful touring exhibition and also some collaborations coming up.
The ADC On Tour exhibition Resolved: Journeys in Australian Design recently finished it's three year tour at JamFactory in Adelaide. ADC's Lisa Cahill spoke to Brian Parkes, CEO of JamFactory to talk about Resolved, what makes a successful touring exhibition and also some collaborations coming up.
Q: Resolved: Journeys is Australian Design comes to an end this month at JamFactory. How was it received in Adelaide?
The show looks great in our space and despite us being the last venue of a 10-venue, three-year national tour, it still feels fresh and relevant. So far more than 4,500 people have visited the show in Adelaide and it really is a great fit for JamFactory and our audience. The exhibition showcases the process of design as much as it does the resulting products and has been particularly valuable for our training Associates, who are each pursuing their own journey in Australian design.
Q: What do you think are the key ingredients for a successful touring exhibition?
It’s always important to start with compelling work or ideas that will attract an audience. For a touring exhibition, the subject or content of the show needs to resonate beyond borders and my personal preference is to see interpretive strategies that engage audiences directly – the use of extended labeling, photographic images and i-Pads with extensive video content for Resolved is a great example. From a venue point of view, it is enormously helpful to have considered and flexible systems that make all of the logistics easier – systems related to moving, display, labelling, storage, security, packing and so on.
Q: At ADC we really enjoy our collaborations with Jam Factory. We’re are taking two of your exhibitions in 2019. Can you tell us a little bit about STEEL and the upcoming CONCRETE exhibition?
STEEL and CONCRETE are the next and last exhibitions in a series that began with WOOD and GLASS – all with the subtitle, art design architecture. Each of the shows looks at innovative uses of the material in contemporary Australian art, design and architecture. STEEL has been curated by Margaret Hancock Davis and features 29 exhibitors including jewelers such as Sean O’Connell and Sue Lorraine, furniture designers such as Trent Jansen and Brodie Neil, sculptors like Matthew Harding and Lorraine Connelly-Northey and architects including Cox Architecture and CODA Studio. The exhibition and catalogue design for each show in the series is by Stephen Goddard who has also regularly worked with ADC (including on the Resolved exhibition). CONCRETE is still in early development but we hope to apply everything we’ve learned from the first three shows to make the last one the best one!
Q. What’s on the horizon for Jam Factory?
We’ve grown significantly in the last few years – in scale, reach and in the breadth of our activities and I’m hopeful we can keep doing this! We recently closed our small satellite shop off Rundle Mall and are planning to open another larger shop (with a capacity for changing exhibitions) in a very high profile location in another part of the city. We are about to increase the training and production capacity in our very busy hot glass studio and we’re looking forward to working more closely with the Art Gallery of South Australia as part of the Tarnanthi Festival in October and the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art in March.
Find out more about Resolved: Journeys in Australian Design here
Explore the JamFactory website here
Image: Brian Parkes, photo courtesy of JamFactory website.