Molonglo

What follows the building of places is the inevitable process of filling these places with stuff. At no point have we been more aware of this than when we opened a hotel in Canberra named Hotel Hotel. The idea of ordering in mass-produced objects and furniture, however cheap and convenient, made us anxious. Who would be the person on the other end of that order making the thing we just ordered? Did we really have to buy a thousand units when we only need 200? What would these objects even mean to us once we placed them in the hotel? How could they mean anything to us when we don’t really know anything about them?

Fix and Make was a series of 50 public workshops and talks held over 12 months that actively explored these anxieties. Through the practical, the experimental and the philosophical, the program brought different people together to actively question our relationship with, and consumption of, objects. Events included a workshop on reviving broken glass objects by the Australian National University’s Head of the Glass Workshop, a meet and greet with India’s most prolific toymaker, a panel discussion on why we buy and the creation of a fully operational factory production line by the Australian National University’s School of Art.

What we realised is that through the process of fixing and making we can not only gain a better understanding of how the stuff we fill our lives with works, but we can apply a ‘fix and make’ attitude to other areas of life. We can solve our own problems. We can take control of our own resources. We can, not always but a lot of the time, break our dependence on the mass made.