Murmur

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: 'Murmur' was a commissioned review of a significant installation by the eminent Australian artist Rossylnd Piggott. Her project involved the transformation of a house museum, The Johnston Collection (a house in East Melbourne, the former home of antique dealer William Johnston). The installation addressed the interiors of Johnston's House and the interiority/subjectivtiy of the three men who lived there through a extensive rearrangment of the collection including antiques, paintings, furniture. Works by the artist were also part of the installation. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: Professor Jane Rendell of Barlett University, positions the practice of writing as an act of design that has value in and of itself. This review, 'Murmur', built on an earlier Attiwill review of the eminent Australian artist/photographer Anne Zahalka's exhibition, a piece that focused on the issue of interior and interiority to make new connections between contemporary art photography and interior design practice in Australia (see 'Inside Anne Zahalka's Hall of Mirrors', Artichoke 19 December 2007, pp. 74-79). The review of 'Murmur' created new knowledge by drawing on discourses of interior design to analyse the installation. It considered how the artist rearranged objects to 'draw attention to spatial, material and temporal relations and how they produce meaning'. The review contributes to the small but growing field of theoretical writing about interior design, a practice that challenges the 'coffee table' book or lifestyle piece that has been the norm. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: This review was commissioned by 'Artichoke', a magazine endorsed by the Design Institute of Australia. 'Artichoke', published quarterly by Architecture Media, is Australia's most respected interior architecture and design magazine and it has a wide trade, profession and general readership.