Complexity and Fullness

Full description

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: 'Complexity and Fullness' was developed for the IDEA 2012 inaugural research exhibition, a major endeavour of national and international significance. Influenced by the work of Rem Koolhass - who proposed that 'everything is melting into shopping' - the researchers explored the proposition that being in retail spaces is a complex and full experience for consumers.

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: The project comprised a gallery installation and catalogue essay. The researcher-designers used photography, projection, diagramming and storyboarding to produce sets, props and images that examined the production of interiors within the urban medium of retail.This installation-based project followed on from a series of built works including models, film and public interventions that are part of an ongoing research inquiry into the production of interiors through the use of scenic strategies. This project creates new knowledge about a ubiquitous yet significant part of everyday life - shopping - and the twin drives of desire and sacrifice that fuel every commercial exchange. It proposes that retail is an urban medium.

RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The IDEA (Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association) working group pioneered a competitive, double blind peer-reviewed model for this international exhibition convened by Curtin University at the independent and prestigious FORM Gallery (funded by state and federal governments). The group received 36 abstracts from designer-researchers in Australia, NZ, the UK, the US and Canada. Eighteen projects were selected for inclusion. An inter-institutional team curated the show. More than 2500 people visited the exhibition (exhibition report) and it was reviewed in three online publications and in three research publications. The research was further dissmenated via a 63-page catalogue (published by FORM Gallery), which included an essay by Fryatt and Kemp.