CASE STUDY RESOURCES
Patty Johnson
http://www.keilhauer.com/designerbio/designerbio.asp?DesignerID=13
http://www.sheridanc.on.ca/academic/arts/craftsdesign/furniture/johnson_content.html
http://www.renegademedia.info/articles/azure-may-2003.html
http://www.spekeklein.com/AD/bios/patty_johnson.htm
USAID project
http://www.gtisproject.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8&Itemid=65
Canadian Interiors Magazine award http://www.canadianinteriors.com/archive/2004/ja04/bestcan7story.htm
International Contemporary Furniture Fair
http://www.icff.com
Students at the Parsons School of Design in New York City travel to Guyana to work with Liana Cane on a new product line
http://www.isdesignet.com/Magazine/J_A%2700/ednote.html
http://productdesign.parsons.edu/html/collaboration_html/Guyana/guyana.html
Guyanese companies participating in the USAID program http://www.gsmp.org/lianacane/
Fair trade timber
http://www.eftafairtrade.org/Document.asp?DocID=100&tod=53329
Projects in Botswana
Botwswana Craft
http://www.botswanacraft.bw/
Mogomotsi Enterprises Furniture Company
http://mogomotsi-a.en.21cpp.com/en/
Etsha Weavers Group
http://www.botswanacraft.bw/gallery/gallery.html
Canadian international development programs
Canadian International Development Agency
http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/index-e.htm
Engineers Without Borders Canada
http://www.ewb.ca/content/en/index2.shtml
Sustainable design
http://www.valuecreatedreview.com/
The Kufa plant, also known as Lianacane, grows up to 30 metres high in the forests of Guyana. It is an easily regenerated crop that is popular for furniture because of its flexibility, length and durability.
Photograph by Patty Johnson
2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Patty Johnson. All Rights Reserved.
The Par furniture series was a model of international collaboration. The chairs and tables were made of local materials and manufacturing techniques from Guyana, and the legs and interior frame were made of tubular steel by Pure Design in Edmonton.
Patty Johnson, Terrence Cooke, Pure Design (Edmonton), Lianacane (Guyana), Photograph by Pure Design
2004
CANADA Toronto Region, Ontario, Toronto Region, CANADA
GUYANA
Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA
© 2006, Lina Cane. All Rights Reserved.
Canadian designer Patty Johnson works with weavers from the indigenous Wai Wai community of Guyana in the Liana Cane factory.
Photograph by Dr. Fenton Sands
2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Patty Johnson. All Rights Reserved.
LianaCane is a company that produces woven furniture using sustainable materials from the Guyana rainforests. Here, factory employees assemble furniture frames made from kufa vine that has been steamed and bent around wooden jigs.
Photograph by Patty Johnson
2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Patty Johnson. All Rights Reserved.
Precision Woodworking will collaborate with Liana Cane to launch a new line of hardwood and woven furniture at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City in May 2006.
Photograph by Patty Johnson
2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Patty Johnson. All Rights Reserved.
Patty Johnson (Toronto), Mogomotsi Enterprises Furniture Company (Botswana), Photography by Mabeo
2006
BOTSWANA
© 2006, Mogomotsi Enterprises Furniture Company. All Rights Reserved.
Patty Johnson is collaborating with the Etsha Weavers Group to produce contemporary design objects based on traditional baskets and techniques.
Photograph by Patty Johnson
2006
BOTSWANA
© 2006, Patty Johnson. All Rights Reserved.
The Etsha baskets are a combination of traditional weaving skills from Angola and patterns and colours from Botswana.
Photograph by Patty Johnson
2006
BOTSWANA
© 2006. Patty Johnson. All Rights Reserved.
Patty Johnson discusses what led her to become a furniture designer and why her work has a social focus.
Patty Johnson discusses what led her to become a furniture designer and why her work has a social focus.
"I think like all designers, I came to design through a route that one might not necessarily think that one might come to design. I started off in the University of Toronto in literature and theatre. I was very interested in modernist literature, modernist theatre and I did a lot of directing, I organized a lot of plays. Most of these were around the theme of utopian ideals and modernist theories of being. When I left university I was very interested in pursuing a creative..."
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
CANADA Toronto Region, Ontario, Toronto Region, CANADA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
Patty Johnson discusses what led her to become a furniture designer and why her work has a social focus.
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
CANADA Toronto Region, Ontario, Toronto Region, CANADA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
Establishing a role for a Canadian furniture designer in Guyana.
Establishing a role for a Canadian furniture in Guyana
"I started originally working in Guyana in 2000. I was hired on by the Canadian International Development Agency Consultancy. I was hired as a furniture design consultant for the furniture industry in Guyana. I'd never been to a third world country before but off I went for 21 days. During that time I visited 14 factories in Guyana. I got a very good chance to compare with Canada or the US what their furniture industry is about and also the obstacles faced by third world countries. It's almost a miracle that any industry exists but it does. I completed that consultancy and I was very moved by their efforts and the materials they were using there also fit very will with the kind of materials I had worked with previously. [...] I was actually really compelled and I really wanted to continue to work there. It was really hard to see a way to do that because the industry is not set up to work with designers, the infrastructure is not there to really allow design to flourish and what they need in addition to design is actually access to markets."
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
Establishing a role for a Canadian furniture designer in Guyana.
Establishing a role for a Canadian furniture in Guyana
"We started talking to USAID, which is the United States Agency for International Development who run quite large projects in Guyana. They run them in a variety of sectors including fisheries, timber, health and safety. They're all running service programs and we talked to them about running a furniture program aimed to create an export product line and aimed at a launch. Initially when we wrote up the terms of reference it covered my costs for a year working on the product lines over a series of visits to Guyana. We proposed that I work with a couple of companies and at the same time work with some local manufacturers to improve their quality in the hopes that eventually they would come into the export market. Very soon after that project started, USAID expressed interest in actually expanding the project to include a market launch in New York. The project was put together as something that would span about a year and a half starting with product development, trying to address some of the needs of the local market and ending with a launch in New York. We are now two months away from the launch."
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
Establishing a role for a Canadian furniture designer in Guyana.
Establishing a role for a Canadian furniture in Guyana
"I guess one of the things that makes a project like this appropriate for me is that I have a craft background. So although I've always been interested in production, I've also always been very interested in craft. That was my educational background, and continues to be my educational background [as I complete a] masters [degree] from Central St. Martin's [school]. Central St. Martin's is famous for many things, among them fashion design but also craft and design. And having said that I'll clarify that my level of comfort with craft production shows there and and shows why I would be interested in a project like this. To contextualize that a bit more broadly, I would also say that 2/3 of the world operates on hand labour. So despite the fact in our culture we think faster, bigger, more, better, in fact a lot of the things we use everyday are manufactured by hand in developing countries or in emerging economies. Design has an obligation to address these sorts of things. So I see that as a very important part of what I'm doing."
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
Establishing a role for a Canadian furniture designer in Guyana.
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
Readjusting your expectations: the challenges of working in a developing country.
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
Protecting the rainforest: sustainable manufacturing in Guyana.
Qasim Virjee
March 2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
Guyana in the global economy: exporting furniture with a new business model could have long-term benefits at home.
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
On the same wavelength: new colleagues, new friends.
Qasim Virjee
Patty Johnson, Elise Hodson
March 2006
GUYANA
© 2006, Design Exchange. All Rights Reserved.