Broached Commissions, a Melbourne-based design studio, has pioneered a new approach to the applied arts and to design objects based on extensive curatorial research into overarching historical themes such as colonialism and globalization. One of their central concerns is a key question in international applied arts practice: What happens to design when it migrates?

The group's first exhibition in China takes as a starting point Australia's unique position as a mediator between European cultural traditions and its East and Southeast Asian neighbors. Far from merely a show of Australian design in China, "Broached Retreat" invites international designers to collaborate on discussions on the history of design. "Broached Retreat" features twelve pieces by eight designers. The exhibition includes works from the group's first two highly successful collections, "Broached Colonial" and "Broached East." alongside new works made for the UCCA presentation. "Broached Colonial" explores the colonial period from the Australian perspective, probing how the country's unique cultural geography and population - remote yet European, bringing together entrepreneurs, frontiersmen, and convicts - impacted the development of its nascent material culture. 

"Broached East" focuses on Australia's relationship to Asia during the Australian gold rush. This period saw the beginning of mainstream consumer products and life style magazines, an era of consumption that continues today. With an influx of gold rush money, Australia quickly pivoted from being a penal colony to a merchant economy. It is during this period that the arts & crafts movement throws down the challenge to champion the well and locally made over the ubiquitous, cheap, mass-produced version - another dichotomy that persists to this day and is at the heart of the industrial dilemmas that Broached focuses on. 

"Broached Retreat" situates these collections within a new context: a pavilion constructed out of paper and stone. The pavilion consists of a masculine study and a feminine boudoir. The rooms are conceived as meditative refuge, featuring works that address the question of how we experience private, interior spaces today. A few new works are being created to fit with the show's pavilion context. A day bed and stools are being made from the Dzek Max Lamb Marmoreal terrazzo stone. A giant loom containing a weaving by Susan Dimasi of MaterialByProduct and a dressing table by Chen Lu are being designed especially for the UCCA exhibition. 

Broached Commissions is interested in design as a creative canon unto itself. The group explores narratives of design: how different times and cultures came to produce the forms that they did, and how these ideas grew, shifted, and evolved when adopted by designers and artisans in different parts of the world. The group investigates not just objects, but the locally specific intentions and desires that inspired them. For each commission, core Broached designers are joined by a curator to initiate research into the human and industrial stories of a particular era in Asia-Pacific history. Working with curators and scholars, the group constructs a narrative framework to guide the design. Broached then reaches out to international designers whose interests and practice fit the project, producing concept sketches and prototypes before engaging artisans and specialists to realize the object. 

*image (left)
Azuma Makoto,
Paludarium Shigelu, 2013,
stainless steel, glass, 80 x 80 x 120 cm
Courtesy Azuma Makoto