Installation shot from the Buddy System, Span Gallery February-March 2006

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Gather some yarns, teach someone to crochet a flower, pin it on a wall; later, send it to someone they care about.

That, in essence is The Buddy System , a deceptively simple interactive art project which formed part of Festival Melbourne 2006, the Commonwealth Games cultural festival.

In the huge and costly festival wheel it was perhaps a minor cog. Yet the joy derived by those 400 people who took part in it, the simple beauty of the exhibition which resulted and the undoubted delight of those who opened an envelope to find a colourful flower and a letter explaining how and why it was made for them and by whom gave it a power far beyond its humble components.

The Buddy System is the brainchild of New Zealand artist Ani O'Neill. She conceived it for the Auckland Art Gallery in 2001 where it was so successful it continued for three months, staged it again in Palmerston North the following year and in the clinics reception area of Auckland University's new Tamaki campus in early 2004, where it remains a permanent and still-growing installation. Later that year she also took it to New York during a residency at not-for-profit gallery Art in General.

O'Neill is of Pakeha and Cook Islands background and often uses use Pacific crafts in work which takes its inspiration from traditions of shared making and giving. She has said the flowers made in this project reference the raffia flowers made by her Rarotongan grandmother for a belt which hung on her wall as a child.

She came to Melbourne with two Kiwi "buddies", Megan Hansen-Knarhoi and Emily Siddell, with whom she has worked before, to share the teaching. She quickly gained two more; for Melbourne crocheting sisters Marg Lanne, who designs, makes and sells crochet flower homewares, and Maryanne Noonan, who arrived together on morning one and returned every day, to take part was "a dream come true".

The Buddy System has at its heart the use of a single thread to create an item of beauty from interconnected loops and is itself about making connections: those formed between participants, between them and their new "buddies" and of course between the flower-maker and his or her chosen recipient. As well, the multicoloured, multi-textured flowers are, when attached to the gallery walls, connected to each other by crochet chains made as part of the learning process.

O'Neill creates a "set" for her project which includes painted walls, comfortable couches covered with colourful crochet rugs found at op-shops and a bank of video monitors screening a how-to video which is in itself an artwork. On each split screen monitor her hands are at work at a different stage of the process, right-handed crochet set beside its mirror image on the same screen, each pair against a background of a different colour. Crochet cushions and shelves of yarn complete a "homely" atmosphere which serves to entice participants and increase comfort levels while part of a public activity.

By any measure the Melbourne staging of The Buddy System could be deemed a success. More than 400 flowers were made in the three weeks and at the final week's end sent to the nominated recipients by an exhausted O'Neill and her buddies, compared with 827 made in Auckland in three months. O'Neill told Craft Culture : "The intensity of the Melbourne experience has been quite overwhelming at times."

Many others came simply to look, to learn what it was all about, or just to admire the two walls of flowers - an ephemeral work which only those who happened upon it in those three weeks could experience.

Some of those who learned to crochet may continue with a craft which offers solace, enjoyment, stimulation and the immense satisfaction to be derived from making by hand. But if they don't, no matter. The Buddy System offered them the chance to be part of something warm and enjoyable, to make something by hand and to share the spirit of the Pacific island women who sit together to create works to use or sell.

They may be happy, too, that they have learned a skill which is is the height of fashion. But to O'Neill that hype is irrelevant. "There is just so much love that goes into making things and that is the most important thing," she says.

Another festival homage to the non-professional handmade was The Canopy of the Commonwealth , a large and colourful compilation of embellished fabrics which arose from an attempt to involve Australians not from Commonwealth countries in the festival.

Again, this was a project as much about the process as the end result - the more so because the way the end result was displayed and the information accompanying it were disappointing.

The Canopy comprised segments created by more than 30 individuals and community groups from around Victoria who were supplied with fabric and invited to use sewing, beading, appliqué, knitting, beading, painting - nothing was ruled out in creating their contribution.

Multicultural groups were asked to contribute to what organisers called "this celebration of diverse textile traditions" and in the final three months of last year workshops were held at which those who wanted to could share their skills and work on embellishing their piece.

I know this because I received the organisers' press release and because I was directed, after asking, to the single piece of information displayed with the Canopy at the RMIT gallery. It was tucked into a corner by a bookcase, virtually undetectable.

Even then, I remained largely in the dark - as, indeed, was the Canopy itself. In the gloom of the Storey Hall foyer it hung from the ceiling in such a way that it was difficult to clearly see all the motifs. It was necessary to crane one's neck to see much at all and as there was nothing to suggest new arrivals do so there were presumably those who entered the main exhibition without even noticing it.

The information panel said it was conceptualised by Professor Jasleen Dhamija, one of the world's leading advisers on Indian and African textiles. I later learned from a press cutting that she is from India.

It said too that it was designed by Cresside Collette, "a well known artist and tapestry weaver". Her role was not explained. Did the fact that the Canopy had a designer mean participants were told what colours and shapes to use? Just how much say did they have over their contribution? And did she decide the layout of the contributions, or was done by those credited with sewing them together at RMIT Brunswick?

There was a similar dearth of information about the contributions of the craftspeople involved. What lay behind their choice of colours and motifs (if indeed they had a choice)? Who made what, and why? No answers there either.

It appeared that the underlying fabric pieces were constructed to represent flags - some comprised three horizontal segments, others three vertical segments, some an oblong divided by a diagonal strip, others with a triangle on the left. But that's my theory - I have seen no mention of flags, nothing to lend the notion weight or to dissuade me of it.

One can only hope that those who took part had great fun making their contributions, whether together or alone, because the professionalism of some of the work notwithstanding, the end result was, I am sorry to say, a complete mish-mash. With no overall coherence the Canopy was a jumble of colours and motifs, its fabric pieces overlaid with motifs ranging from peacocks and mini-waistcoat fronts in beautiful Indian-style embroidery, to leaves and flowers, crochet doilies (commercial doilies?), a house with peeling-off chickens in its yard and a gruesome Sydney Opera House in a bold check fabric.

What possessed someone to surround a Union Jack with red, white and blue crochet shapes, all covering a triangle of fabric projecting into two pieces with which it comprised an oblong - the top piece red fabric with embroidery and sequins, the bottom green, with photos printed thereon.

Why did one apparent flag shape combine segments with a cobweb, a vase of flowers and many hands? Sadly, we shall never know.

In fact there is so much we do not know about this project. Given its nature, the professionalism or otherwise of the work is not an issue - or it would be less so, had been been told more about why and how it was done, rather than left to judge it at face value.

Those who have left us so ill-informed have done a disservice to those who contributed their time, energy and skill to an idea with so much potential.

 

To pass from this foyer into Storey Hall was to enter another world, one in which the finest of textiles, the most intricate of skills were showcased in a truly magnificent exhibition, justifiably one of the festival's keynote visual arts events.

Here was telling evidence of the power and cultural significance with which textiles can be imbued - a significance which can live on beyond the life of the wearer, as with the Shaman's robe from Igloolik in Nunavut, Canada, which his grandson recalled had been copied by his grandmother for a collector because it was believed that to give it away would be to give away its power.

A Bangladeshi Kantha quilt, richly embroidered and quilted for a newborn - so included in the Rites of Passage section of the exhibition rather than as part of the Cloths of Power theme - further illustrates such notions of power. These quilts are made from recycled dhotis - but only from a man who has lived a long and auspicious life.

Such power is not necessarily related to skill with which the fabric was made or embellished or to its beauty - the dreary black silk dress worn by Queen Victoria represents the resurgence of an entire industry, the production of fabric for mourning dress, when the Queen and her court plunged into mourning on the death of her beloved consort Albert, sparking a new emphasis on mourning garb throughout Victorian England.

The garments worn by Mahatma Gandhi, made from simple handspun cloth, were a symbol of India's fight for freedom from Western dress and dependence on British products.

More commonly though, the power of a textile was reflected in its magnificence, and or the complexity or labour intensity of its construction - the finest textiles for the most powerful people.

Entering the main hall was an immediate and powerful stimulant to the senses - everywhere was red, the colour of power, of good fortune, of blood. This was a chance to see the finest Kente cloth from Ghana, its colours vibrating from the rear wall where the large fabric drops were hung, and intricate Yoruba costumes from western Nigeria - many generously loaned by Yoruba scholar Ulli Beier - their patterns of birds and animals created by tens of thousands of sequins, each with a tiny bead stitched at its centre. The workmanship of items such as these, or, to pick other examples at random, the handwoven Kashmiri shawls, or the dazzling gold Brunei bridal coat, were simply breathtaking.

Threading the Commonwealth , featuring textiles drawn from 36 Commonwealth nations, was in every way a superb exhibition - extremely well hung, with a number of garments on motorised turning mannequins so the back could be seen, and supported by detailed and clearly written wall panels and individual plaques with the works.

But it was an exhibition about more than simply being thrilled by the works on display and marvelling at the techniques used (although, the efforts of the organisers to source works from around the world notwithstanding, it was certainly an eye-opener to note how many of these rarely-seen treasures were drawn from the vaults of Museum Victoria and the NGA). It raised important issues about the use of textiles, their historical role and their role in contemporary societies.

Gallery and exhibition director Suzanne Davies has described it as a way of "both uniting and differentiating us". Certainly the diversity of the textiles and the cultural traditions they embody emphasised the artificiality of the construct that is the British Commonwealth - 71 nations, many with little more in common than a shared history as British colonies. And it was notable that some of the works - the garments of Ghandi and Nehru, for instance, resonated with the struggle to be free from British rule.

It is interesting to contrast the notions of togetherness engendered by The Buddy System and the Canopy of the Commonwealth with the diversity and differences in textiles on show here. Yet at heart there were similarities: the making of fine work, often by hand, for important symbolic purposes - wedding robes, baby clothes, ceremonial dress, fabrics for use in rituals associated with death - or to be worn by those vested with power, as indeed were many of the textiles themselves; the imbuing of textiles with the power to protect or to heal, or to help drive away evil.

As the two themes demonstrated, in all of these cultures textiles can denote a powerful person or event and are used to mark all the stages of human life. And there were illustrations of surprising links; a bed was prepared as it would be in Kalabari, Nigeria, in readiness for the body of a chief before his funeral. It was laid not with the fine local fabric but with Real Madras Handkerchief cotton, imported from India. A school uniform, a summer skirt, a checked handkerchief or a laying-out bed fit for a chief - it's all a matter of cultural interpretation.

This was fabric for thought. Let's hope it won't require another major sporting event for more treasures to be excavated from the vaults of our own institutions, for us to enjoy and ponder.