MAKESHIFT LABORATORY .is where we pursue
an emerging collaborative art practice. Our projects combine elements of drawing, sculpture, installation, printmaking, performance and social exchange. Thus far they have generally appeared as site-specific interventions that provoke unexpected interactions between people and their environments.

We have a special interest in the social histories of plants and constructions of ‘nature’. In our first year of practice we have found ourselves making work in a curious assortment of public parks and botanic gardens around the country, as part of festivals like Shifting Ground in Alice Springs, This is Not Art in Newcastle, Gang festival in Sydney and Next Wave Festival in Melbourne.

To all projects we bring a thorough knowledge of the most up-to-date concepts in sustainable design, and a commitment to developing solutions which are engaging, well-informed and genuinely innovative. We choose to work only with those clients who we feel operate in a socially and environmentally responsible manner (see our philosophy), and are particularly passionate about supporting arts and community organisations.

MAKESHIFT WORKSHOP is where you can buy things made by us. These are often part of broader creative projects being pursued in the Lab.

At the moment the Workshop is in a state of semi-hibernation (while activity in the Lab bubbles away...), but it will eventually generate and build more objects that respond to needs identified within the wider community. These objects perform useful tasks but also prompt questions about how we currently live, interact and consume in the world. We are committed to looking after each item we produce throughout its natural life, and so may offer maintenance advice, after-life collection, or leasing arrangements where possible. Keep your eyes peeled!

MAKESHIFT THINK TANK houses the varied ways in which we contribute to knowledge and histories of design and the material landscape. In the heart of the Tank lies our commitment to furthering design research, to educating young designers and to opening up the design discipline to other discourses and fields of practice. We hope by these activities to participate in constructing a more challenging and critically engaged discourse than currently prevails within the design community.