E1MBARGO: 10.00 P. M.
_ AUSI RAI A A,
PRIME MINISTER PRESS STATEMENT NO. 130
14 September 1973
AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS GOVERNMZENT GRANT FOR WORLD
DESIGNJ CONGRESS, JAPAN
The Prime Minister, Mr. W-. hitlam, today announced an
Australian Government grant of $ 25,000 to assist 45 designers,
teachers and students from all Australian States to attend the
Eighth World Design Congress to be held next month in Kyoto,
Japan. The grant was recommended to the Prime Minister by the
Visual Arts Board of the Australian Council for the Arts in
consultation with the Industrial Design Council of Australia.
The Congress has generated such wide interest among designers
that a party of 64 Australians will now participate.
Sponsored by the International Council of Societies
of Industrial Design, the Congress is held every second year
and is being held for the first time in the Asian/ Pacific area.
Those travelling with the aid of the subsidy represent
a diverse range of interests. The group includes practising
designers and design teachers from many fields, architects, a
ceramist, and students in mechanical engineeripng, sculpture
and painting as well as industrial design.
. The Visual Arts Board, in recommending the grant, said
that Australia has so far lacked a tradition of good local design
in its industrial products. Although there have been talented
individuals, they have not had sufficient support by way of
professional training and steady demand for their work.
Australian manufacturers have always leaned heavily on foreign
design for their products.
The Board believes that Australians are now taking more pride
in what we can produce, and our international markets are
demanding a high standard of design. Both f" or our own sake
and for the sake of our export trade, we need excellence of
design to become the rule rather than the exception.
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In administering the $ 25,000 grant, the Industrial-
Design Council has made a particular effort to encourage student
participation in the congress, and students comprise about half
the number of people who have received travel subsidies.
Australian participation in this biennial design
congress has previously been limited almost entirely to one
or two official delegates. " This year, for the first time,
this country will participate in strength, representing about
per cent of the anticipated attendance of 600 overseas
visitors from 35 countries. Some 1500 Japanese designers will
bring the number attending the congress to around 2,000.
The World Design Congress provides a unique opportunity
for the kind of international contact, discussion and exchange
of ideas which are so vital to the development of designers
individually and to the development of attitudes which will lead
to the design of products with qualities more closely related to
the everyday needs of people.
CANBERRA, A. C. T.