by Grace Cochrane.

Rohan Nicol was appointed to the position of Head of the Gold and Silversmithing workshop at the School of Art, ANU, in mid-2014. He was not a stranger to the School however, having graduated from there under Ragnar Hansen and Johannes Kuhnen in 1996 (BA) and in 2003 (BA Hons). He received a number of awards in 2003-2004 that acknowledged his interest in designing for manufacture. After experience in a number of workshops in Australia and the UK, he then taught, and in 2010 completed a PhD, at Charles Sturt University before returning to ANU to teach in Foundation studies and in computer-aided design electives in 2011.

As well as encouraging creative expression through art and design, Nicol is also interested in strategies to help practitioners achieve financially viable studio careers. As part of this process, from the outset he has acknowledged the valuable ways one aspect of an art, crafts and design practice can inform another, saying for the Volume exhibition at Metalab in 2006:

I am interested in making work that is one-off and am equally likely to make pieces that explore limited production. I find it important to work from a variety of angles where developments in one aspect of my practice are to the ultimate benefit of my work as a whole.

Across the Design Arts and Visual Arts courses Nicol is among those on the School of Art staff who are interested in combining their specialist knowledge of applying hand skills in a particular medium with computer-aided design and production technologies to make both individual art works and designs for limited production. In his case, he has used such experiences to make jewellery and accessories, as well as tableware, and has been included in exhibitions such as Smart works: design and the handmade, at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, in 2007. He has also collaborated with specialist industries to work through computer-aided and handmade prototypes for production of large items such as suspended ceiling lights, and for this work he won the prestigious Bombay Sapphire design award in 2009. Interested in the interdisciplinary nature of collaboration, Nicol has also curated exhibitions of the work of others, notably Domestic Renewal, a touring exhibition from Craft ACT in 2012. 

Now working with Simon Cottrell within the Gold and Silversmithing workshop in the ANU School of Art, while maintaining a teaching role in computer-aided design across his and other fields of study, Nicol is also enjoying the evolving opportunities offered through cross-disciplinary studies in crafts and design, where students – and staff – specialising in different areas can consider issues of shared interest and concern in practice and research.

Rohan Nicol, Personal Website

Dr Rohan Nicol, ANU Researchers Profile

Grace Cochrane is an esteemed arts and design historian, an independent curator and writer, formerly senior curator of Australian decorative arts and design at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.