Crafting organization

The recent shift in attention away from organization studies as science has allowed for consideration of new ways of thinking about both organization and organizing and has led to several recent attempts to \u27bring down\u27 organizational theorizing. In this paper, we extend calls for organization to be represented as a creative process by considering organization as craft. Organizational craft, we argue, is attractive, accessible, malleable, reproducible, and marketable. It is also a tangible way of considering organization studies with irreverence. We draw on the hierarchy of distinctions among fine art, decorative art, and craft to suggest that understanding the organization of craft assists in complicating our understanding of marginality. We illustrate our argument by drawing on the case of a contemporary Australian craftworks and marketplace known initially as the Meat Market Craft Centre (\u27MMCC\u27) and then, until its recent closure, as Metro! &Dagger; Stella Minahan was a board member and then the Chief Executive Officer of the Metro! Craft Centre.<br /

Cinderella and the Brilliant Scavengers

Since the late 1980s, the through the concept of the New Museum (Vergo 1989), fashion as an exhibition theme has been used to draw in wider museum audiences. Fashion museums and fashion exhibitions are on the rise. The clothing of Vivienne Westwood, Kylie Minogue or Princess Grace draws in the crowds, quantifying the relevance of museums to funding bodies. As Reigels Melchior notes: fashion is fashionable in museums (2014). What is interesting is the New Museum's refrain of social inclusion (Sandell 2003). Yet welcoming all has never been the mantra of the avant guard of the fashion world. There is tension between the fashion and museum worlds. Fashion hierarchies will always remain. Tastes makers will always be two steps ahead. Fashionistas, one step. Everyone else follows in their wake or buying tickets at the museum front desk. The impact has seen the rise of independently curatored exhibitions, within established museums, which engage in serious critical analysis of the relationship of the body to society. Landmark exhibitions, such as Spectre: When Fashion Turns Back (2004) curatored by Judith Clark, have given innovative fashion-lites new intellectual and physical spaces to work within. Through museums new hierarchies of the fashion system are being fashioned. Rather than exploring the tensions around museums as the gateway between the fashion industry and the public, this paper argues that fashion exhibitions fit within the museum as "theatre of memory" where social memory, commemoration, heritage, myth, fantasy and desire are played out. While institutions construct the academic frameworks (or Cinderella's shoes) of "history" or "design" in order to legitimise fashion exhibitions as a serious pursuit, this paper argues that it is the arousal of memory through dress and a seeking , or reaffirmation, of identity that is the work of fashion exhibitions. Memory is subjective and the plaything of the emotions, "wallowing in its own warmth" (Samuel 2012). It is the brilliant scavengers, such as Clark, that pick over what others consider as remains, the dissonant, bringing to the fore what is forgotten, where retrieval from all kinds of spheres are used to fashion exhibitions that reflect the complex mix of the tangible and intangible that is present in fashion

Fashioning the Curator: The Chinese at the Lambing Flat Folk Museum

In March 2015, I visited the Lambing Flat Folk Museum (established 1967) in the �cherry capital of Australia�, the town of Young, New South Wales, in preparation for a student excursion. Like other Australian folk museums, this museum focuses on the ordinary and the everyday of rural life, and is heavily reliant on local history, local historians, volunteers, and donated objects for the collection. It may not sound as though the Lambing Flat Folk Museum (LFFM) holds much potential for a fashion curator, as fashion exhibitions have become high points of innovation in exhibition design. It is quite a jolt to return to old style folk museums, when travelling shows such as Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (Metropolitan Museum of Art 2011 � V&A Museum 2015) or The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier (V&A Museum 2011� � NGV 2014) are popping up around the globe. The contrast stimulated this author to think on the role and the power of curators. This paper will show that the potential for fashion as a vehicle for demonstrating ideas other than through rubrics of design or history has been growing. We all wear dress. We express identity, politics, status, age, gender, social values, and mental state through the way we dress each and every day. These key issues are also explored in many museum exhibitions. Small museums often have an abundance of clothing. For them, it is a case of not only managing and caring for growing collections but also curating objects in a way that communicates regional and often national identity, as well as narrating stories in meaningful ways to audiences. This paper argues that the way in which dress is curated can greatly enhance temporary and permanent exhibitions. Fashion curation is on the rise (Riegels Melchior). This paper looks at why this is so, the potential for this specialisation in curation, the research required, and the sensitivity needed in communicating ideas in exhibitions. It also suggests how fashion curation skills may facilitate an increasing demand