Lumber Jack

Perhaps the most intellectually provocative exhibition to launch at aMBUSH Gallery this year, Frugal is a culturally reflective exploration of our changing attitudes toward consumption, waste and the fragility of our resources. Inspired by the astute and anecdotal observations of leading Australian designers Berto Pandolfo, Edward Coffey, Ben Baxter, Ruth McDermott, Phillippa Carnemolla and Christian Tietz, the works comprising Frugal offer an intriguing array of innovative and beautiful solutions to the contemporary conundrum of wastefulness. From furniture and object design to lighting and graphics, the breadth of expertise exhibited by Frugal emphasises the relevance of frugality to the design industry as a whole, its practical viability in our everyday lives and the potential to create something truly beautiful from a method inherently economical. Co-curators Ruth McDermott and Ben Baxter hope to urge Frugal’s audiences to emulate the thoughtful attitudes of generations past toward the preciousness of resources, be they time, energy or materials. “We [are] thinking of how our grand-parents never wasted anything, often saving the paper from wrapping, putting unused screws into a collecting jar and hoarding string [and] rubbers bands,” they say of the designers’ approach to the concept.