In the spotlight this month at Objectspace is the lesser-known side of contemporary NZ furniture practice.

Featuring the work of eleven locally trained designers and design houses, ShowRoom examines current themes in contemporary furniture and demonstrates that designers want to make original and innovative work, even if they have to work two jobs or go overseas to do it.In the spotlight this month at Objectspace is the lesser-known side of contemporary NZ furniture practice.

Featuring the work of eleven locally trained designers and design houses, ShowRoom examines current themes in contemporary furniture and demonstrates that designers want to make original and innovative work, even if they have to work two jobs or go overseas to do it.The work of curators Rigel Sorzano and Katy Wallace reveals an active and diverse range of designers and makers intent on producing original and innovative work while sustaining themselves in a small and often conservative local market.

Curator Rigel Sorzano writes about the nature of our local industry as 'the furniture problem' however the diversity of strategies developed by each of these designers, which enable them to operate successfully within this problematic environment, amount to eleven individual success stories.

Despite differences in practice there are some broad themes that are emerging as areas of focus or strategy - global targeting, technological advancements and somewhat in contrast, the crafted tradition.

ShowRoom has been undertaken not just as a survey of contemporary New Zealand furniture design, but as a specific contribution to the sector's vitality and future.

The eleven makers featured in ShowRoom are Greg Bloomfield, Kennedy Brown, Candywhistle, Phil Cuttance, Daniel Emery, Jenny Keate, Tim Larkin, Lindsay Marks, Jamie McLellan, Robert Rose and SubArt.

When: 8 September - 6 October 2007
Where: Objectspace, 8 Ponsonby Rd, Ponsonby, Auckland

Coinciding with ShowRoom is a one day only event, ShowTell. Happening on 6 October 2007, ShowTell is a day in which ShowRoom exhibitors together with a wider group of designers, organisations and interested individuals will give space and shape, through discussion, to the central issues of innovation and sustainability in relation to New Zealand contemporary furniture design.

6/9/07