Ivana Taylor
Ivana Taylor
Civilised Roots, 2018
Ivana is a textile and furniture designer completing a Bachelor of Design/Art Education at UNSW Art & Design. Entwining fabric and wood, Ivana loves creating ‘living’ objects that are functional but also abstract, poetic and intriguing because of the stories and places that inspired them.
An abstract mass of textile and tree limbs, Civilised Roots is a hybrid furniture design that embodies colliding and conflicting stories that have been knotted into Australia’s history.
Our history stumps us because it is not singular; it is riddled with contradictions, absences, and conflicting interpretations. Civilised Roots questions how sculptural furniture design can capture the complex and opposing stories that have defined Australia. Widely accepted histories are deliberately knotted together with counter-narratives that have warped and crafted Australia’s past. The object intends to meld many stories from colonial Australia into an abstract mass of textile and tree limbs, allowing us to sit with and amongst the knotting of histories, witnessed, told and manipulated over time.
Image: Ivana Taylor, Civilised Roots, 2018. Linen, cotton thread, foam, and Fig/Australian Banyan tree stump. Photo by Xenia Taylor.
Ivana Taylor
What does design mean to you?
It is an active and useful opportunity to create objects that influence ways of seeing and being in this world.
How can design play a role in our future?
Design is more than form and material. Design can be a thoughtful problem-solving tool that challenges outmoded ideas. It can trigger a conscious re-evaluation of what does and doesn’t work.
Where would you like to be five years from now?
I would love to be working alongside other designer-makers, manifesting objects that are functional but also abstract, poetic, beautiful and intriguing because of the stories and places that inspired them.
Ivana Taylor studied a Bachelor of Design (Honours): Art Education/ Design at UNSW Art & Design completing her honours year in 2018.
Image: Ivana Taylor, 2018. Photo courtesy of ADC.