Melbourne Design Week 2021 - Broached Recall
In the world of design galleries, there is one true exception, one that stands out by the quality of its research, its collections and the exquisite execution: Broached Commissions in Melbourne. On the occasion of Melbourne Design Week 2021, discover Broached Recall.
I had the chance to meet Lou Weis, the founder of Broached Commissions, back in 2012, during a discovery tour of designers in Australia. The gallery made its first international presence at a fair during Design Days Dubai in 2013 and returned two years later.
So what makes Broached Commissions so unique? Maybe I should first not qualify them as a gallery but more as a “research and narrative-driver production house” as they describe themselves. They commission and create collectible design and provide creative direction for public art and interior commercial spaces.
During Melbourne Design Week 2021, twelve new limited and open edition applied-arts objects will continue a line of enquiry that attempts to convey the design industry’s wilful contribution to a world that is full of products and yet denuded of life.
This debut exhibition of Broached Recall in Australia harnesses the precious historical veneer archive of Elton Group, dating back to the 1930’s. These precisely articulated objects for the home are the result of a two year development process that saw Broached create three dimensional objects from a suite of pattern languages created by John Warwicker. John’s work traced the history of modernism to its origins in the mid-19th century.
Elton Group’s heritage spans almost a century of hands-on expertise in timber.
A multi-generational family business, Elton Group are the only Australian supplier of reconstructed timber veneers with direct control of the entire supply and production chain, from the log to the finished product.
For this exhibition, Broached Commissions and Elton Group have turned through the expansive veneer archives to select eight heritage timber species which have been paired with Elton Group’s colourful contemporary reconstructed veneer range.
By matching new and historical veneers, each Recall object is a unique dialogue between the past and present global management of the timber industry.
The materials used for the collection pieces are heritage timbers are available in Australian Red Cedar, Huon Pine, birdseye Huon Pine, Burl Walnut, Walnut and Australian Blackwood. Colour veneer options include quilted pink, quilted blue, olive green burl, blue burl, barrier-reef blue or black.
As part of this exhibition, Broached Commissions will present a short film by Paul Barbera, which explores the fabrication of the works, abstracted by the theme of the ever-accelerating grid of modernity and its ability to absorb everything within its ubiquitous form.
Broached Recall, 124 Exhibition St, 124 Exhibition St, Melbourne - March 26th - April 4th.
