There is a lot of talk about design at the moment. It is linked with ideas like 'the creative industries', 'creative cities' and 'the creative class'. But what is 'design'? The term can be used to brand a diversity of activities from engineering bridges to engineering taste. In recent years many projects have emerged which intertwine art and design, some to exploit the connection, others to probe it. On Thursday night at 6pm, Katherine Moline and Toni Ross present papers about this.

Katherine Moline's paper will ask: Does exhibiting design make it art? These days designers often produce exhibition pieces – a practice known as 'critical design'. But since fine art and design are distinct fields, are claims for the legitimacy of design as art unfounded? Do they reduce avant-gardism to a marketing strategy?

Toni Ross is also ambivalent about the newly enhanced status of design as art and the recent 'massification' of design production and consumption. Via the art of Lucy Orta (which combines clothing and textile design, sculpture, architecture and performance) and drawing on the formulations of French philosopher Jacques Ranciere, her paper will explore how modern art and design resemble and contradict each other.

Ian Woodward and Kathleen Cattoni will respond.

This discussion will also provide the setting for the launch of the IMA's first issue of the Journal Of Art, which features an essay on Andrea Zittel by Toni Ross and an interview with Jacques Ranciere by Ross and Andrew McNamara.

Toni Ross is a Senior Lecturer in Art History at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney. Katherine Moline is an artist, designer, critic and curator, completing her PhD in experimental design at at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney.