In a review of 40 key organizations 12-13 September, the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council decided to bring a 40-year history of national and international advocacy for the Australian craft design sector by CA to an end.

Others have written, and will continue to draw attention to the issue of the inadequacy of the process, even in accordance with the Australia Council’s own published procedural guidelines.

It is my intention to add to the argument for the retention of some form of national craft-design organization by commenting on our nation’s paucity of strategies and mechanisms through which to build a long-term self-awareness of the place of our creative industries in nation building and in presenting our nation to the world. Australia does not have an Alliance Francaise or a Goethe Institute and we have generally dragged our feet in respect of finding a place at the international table through related activity at our Embassies and High Commissions or importantly, in NGO networks. I, as do other previous members of the CA board, have a history of involvement in ad hoc cultural liaison projects at various foreign posts that were necessitated because Australia did not seem to be good at building long-term, sustainable capacity in this area.

In respect of Contemporary Craft and Design, Australia has a history of involvement at a national level through international organizations such as the World Crafts Council, a massive operational network through which European and Asian member organizations in particular, continue to promote the cultural and commercial success of their craftspeople and designers, and consequently the cultures they represent, on the world stage. I am a past president of Craft Australia and represented Australian craftspeople and designers in one of its former guises when it was active in international advocacy for Australian creative practitioners and the sector. The cessation of that crucial international bridging was a previous VAB decision that remains regrettable. I still work actively in the international arena and am often confronted with the question at craft and design fora – where is Australia? It is difficult for me to respond positively.

The key issue is that of a nation not responding adequately to the challenge of continuity and long-term building of its brand in this crucial set of disciplines.

Why doesn’t the Australia Council do this? Of course it believes it does, I believe the issue is both conceptual and structural. Contemporary crafts and design practice is rooted in tradition; albeit as any survey of contemporary outputs will show, not trapped by it. I’m sure the people on Australia Council committees do their level best to make assessments within the frames of reference for various funding programs but long-term brand building is either not adequately understood or is lost in the process of formulating assessment criteria. For one thing, the trend to managerialism has made it progressively difficult for long-term nation-building exercises to be validated within the ‘cult of the new’ in the arts, which has become the principle cultural and procedural informer to so many of our processes including, regrettably, some of those of the Australia Council.

So my earnest plea is this – more strength to arm of the Australia Council in its advocacy for contemporary arts practice, artistic and professional skilling, quality and innovation and the effective use of resources - however long-term national and international networking and consistent brand-building must be added to the criteria for the granting of funding to organizations. As a nation, we simply cannot afford to throw forty years of effort by a continuum of high profile practitioners and institutional advocates onto the scrap heap. I would ask for a quick review of which national visual arts organizations have gone the distance and have built our brand as a creative nation as consistently as has Craft Australia, and beg the utmost caution in accurately assessing the value of that to the national estate.

Can we ensure that the critical mass of experience that many such as me have built up over 40 years is not sacrificed to Australia’s cost?