Melbourne Design Week 2021

Melbourne Design Week, Australia’s leading annual international design event, has today launched the 2021 festival – the largest iteration to date. Presented by Creative Victoria in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria, the festival features 11 days of more than 300 exhibitions, talks, films, tours and workshops across Victoria and online exploring the theme ‘design the world you want’.
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​www.designweek.melbourne

Highlights from Melbourne Design Week 2021

A New Normal

From an arresting solarpanelled roof top pavilion by John Wardle Architects to a bespoke, ​ energy-producing greenhouse designed by Ha, A New Normal is an exhibition featuring fifteen installations by leading Australian architects and designers that challenges Melbourne to become an entirely self-sufficient city by 2030.
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​Drawing on exemplary case studies and scientific research, as well as empirical evidence of the Melbourne’s consumption of resources, the fifteen installations present responses to or solutions for Melbourne’s transformation from a consumer of resources into a sustainable producer. ​

Curated by Finding Infinity, an organisation dedicated to creating sustainable cities through design and creativity, with support from Thomas Supple, the exhibition is complemented by a series of talks, programs and live-streamed events throughout Design Week.

Broached Recall

Broached Commissions presents an exhibition of new Broached Recall applied-arts objects in partnership with Elton Group, as part of Melbourne Design Week 2021.

Twelve new limited and open edition functional objects will continue a line of enquiry that attempts to expose the design industry’s wilful contribution to a world that is full of products and denuded of life. The Broached Recall collection harnesses existing heritage materials, pairing them with new sustainable materials.

Kerstin Thompson Architects: Encompassing People & Place

Launching during Melbourne Design Week, Kerstin Thompson Architects: Encompassing People & Place is the first in a series of monographs being published by Thames & Hudson that recognises the work of Australia’s most exciting architectural practices, urban designers and landscape architects. For over twenty-five years, Kerstin Thompson has explored how architecture can respond to local conditions to positively shape lives and communities. By harnessing the potential for beauty and delight and a sensitivity to landscape, each project resonates with a spirit of generosity and community value.
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COMMUNITY

Featuring the work of more than 30 designs from Australia, Asia, and Europe, COMMUNITY, presented by alt.material, features never-before-seen work by designers exhibited within empty shopfronts across the City of Yarra that respond to the theme of “community”. ​
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​COMMUNITY is an opportunity for audiences to see new creations by leading furniture and object designers, including Ron Arad, Amanda Levete, Sam Jacob, Iris van Herpen and Ross Lovegrove – some of whom have never-before exhibited work in Australia.

Celebrating Robin Boyd

Leading Australian architect Robin Boyd will be celebrated in a series of events, including Fresh Eyes: Reimagining Robin Boyd's Walsh Street, a photographic exhibition by leading and emerging Melbourne based photographers that re-interprets Boyd’s iconic Melbourne home.
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​Thames & Hudson and the NGV will publish also publish a new richly-illustrated publication, After the Australian Ugliness in collaboration with Monash University and the University of Technology Sydney with the support of the Robin Boyd Foundation to commemorate ​ 60 years since the publication of Boyd's seminal work The Australian Ugliness.
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​Written by Naomi Stead, Tom Lee, Ewan McEoin, and Megan Patty, After the Australian Ugliness responds to Boyd’s most well-known text with critical and creative writing by each of the authors. Through different styles and approaches, each author strives to bring Boyd’s work into the contemporary moment by exploring enduring questions about the elusive, sometimes lucky and sometimes ugly character of Australia today.

Future Inheritence: 20 Speculative Objects for a Time to Come

Future Inheritance explores the power of objects, the stories they hold and the ways in which they transfer ideas and values, from one generation to the next. If we were to leave an object behind for a loved one – what would it look like and what is the significance of that object; emotional, historical, cultural or otherwise?
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​The exhibition showcases the works of 20 artists, with new work commissioned for Melbourne Design Week.

The Nature of an Island at James Makin Gallery

The Nature Of An Island is a new exhibition of works by designer Dale Hardiman and ceramic artist James Lemon. Explored through a collection of objects, The Nature Of An Island represents a future of chaos led by individuality: both Hardiman and Lemon are collaborating on works, but are not allowed to communicate during the process.
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​Established in 2003, the primary focus of James Makin Gallery is to promote excellence and innovation in contemporary art, representing and exhibiting early career to senior Australian contemporary artists. Curated by Laura Kirkham, The Nature Of An Island is the first formal collaboration between Hardiman and Lemon.

Drift presented by Tom Fereday

Drift by Sydney-based designer Tom Fereday presents a dramatic series of 100 unique cast quartz glass forms, exploring the notion of natural passive finishing. Harnessing the unique finishing agent of tidal water for a collection of glass objects, Drift presents a naive exploration into natural, non-powered processes promoting a conversation of how we may better work symbiotically with nature. Each of the objects are patinated and uniquely finished by the tidal drift of the Tasman Sea. Natural abrasion of the ocean water and silica celebrates the beauty and unique variation of the natural finishing process, cycling back the origins of the glass itself to its ultimate presentation.

Preliminary Structures

Preliminary Structures is a contemporary craft exhibition showcasing sculptural works created through experimentations with moulding and casting techniques over a four-week period at Creo Gallery, Cremorne, Melbourne. Seven contemporary makers and designers present works that experiment with moulding and casting techniques across ceramic and glass disciplines. The exhibitors combine studio and industrial making methods to create work that experiments with modularity, materiality, repetition, surface and form.
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​The works explore new ideas and concerns as investigated through mould making processes, and reflect on craft’s complicated relationship to industry, sculpture, design and architecture. The exhibition challenges preconceived ideas of industrial perfection and replication, and repositions these preliminary structures for their craftsmanship and artform.

Full press releases are available to dowload below and more information can be found at designweek.melbourne