Few materials occupy as uncommon a position within contemporary visual culture as aluminium. Since its discovery not much more than a century ago, it's physical attributes - including strength, lightness, malleability, low melting point, ability to conduct heat and resistance to corrosion - have meant that it is constantly lending itself to new and unexpected applications. Beyond its use within industry and engineering, it has been variously employed for homewares, furniture, vehicles, musical instruments, sports equipment and even clothing (in Lurex form). Through an anodising process it can be dyed like a textile, and various surface treatments can give it a polished, mirrored or textured appearance. Symbolically, aluminium has come to represent a variety of meanings - at once signifying a retro aesthetic (when utilised in furniture and homewares) and an ultra-modern one (in space craft and aeroplanes). Its association over recent years with iMac and Audi has changed aluminium once again into a material synonymous with 21st Century design sophistication.

The Vast Terrain project was instigated in order to explore and celebrate the various physical properties and cultural meanings of this uniquely pervasive material, in relation to contemporary Australian craft and design. The project represents a unique collaboration between arts and industry, through the landmark partnering of FORM Contemporary Craft and Design with Alcoa World Alumina Australia and The Alcoa Foundation.

A three-year project incorporating exhibitions, publications, workshops, academic research and symposia (including a major international forum scheduled for 2006, focusing on innovation within contemporary design practice), Vast Terrain will establish a unique body of research equally relevant to the creative industries and the resource sector. The initial outcome of this partnership, the inaugural Vast Terrain exhibition opens at FORM Gallery in February, 2005, showcasing new works by three of Australia's leading metalsmiths, each of whom boasts a reputation for their innovative use of the material - Frank Bauer, Robert Foster and Andrew Last.

Through this initial exhibition, Vast Terrain continues Alcoa's tradition of investment in design innovation, reflecting the integral relationship between cultural capital and the advance of industry. Since the 1930s when Alcoa promoted the Kensington Ware range of homewares, through their multi-million dollar advertising campaign during the 1950s (which commissioned new designs from some of world's leading creative minds), to their present day relationship with Audi, Alcoa has recognised the need to consistently foster design innovation for the material they produce. This spirit of innovation has seen the fostering of a material culture around the metal that allows for imaginative new applications to feed back into the company, as well as into the broader cultural landscape.

Vast Terrain is also a timely acknowledgement of Australia's integral role within the global aluminium industry - Alcoa's aluminium originates from the bauxite mined in the Darling Ranges of Western Australia, (one of the world's oldest landforms) whilst Alcoa's Pinjarra Alumina Refinery will be the world's largest manufacturing plant for the metal by the end of 2005. It is appropriate that the first place the works are exhibited is back in Western Australia, where they first began their journey.

For FORM, the Vast Terrain partnership represents the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the material culture of aluminium within the creative industries. FORM Executive Director, Lynda Dorrington states, "The limitless scale alluded to in the project title refers not only to the huge size of the international aluminium industry, but the endless potential for the application of this iconic material in the development of distinctive designed objects. Alcoa has made a generous investment in contemporary Australian craft and design, capable of making an impression within the global creative industries."

Vast Terrain project   FORM: Contemporary Craft and Design

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