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Journal

Melbourne Design Week 2023

Melbourne Design Week is an annual celebration of the Australian design industry. With over 100 events held across the country’s design capital, we asked our Melbourne-based Product Developer Bonnie Mack to share her top five exhibitions from this year’s fair.

“This year the theme 'Design the World You Want' asked contributors ‘how can we bring energy into spaces?’ Many exhibitors used materials encouraging connection, warmth, and togetherness to interpret this theme and overall, there was less focus on the word sustainability. Instead, the concept of sustainability was engrained in tangible experiences and the in-depth considerations of materials, proving that responsible design is expected across our industry,” says Bonnie.

 

DESIGN FAIR

Following its debut in 2022, Design Fair is quickly becoming a central event in the Design Week programme. Laid out as a gigantic exhibition in the city’s Convention and Exhibition Centre, this was a showcase of the best of the best, heightened by the unique opportunity to speak with local designers and gallerists at their stalls. 

WEAVING CIRCLE

Numbulwar Numburindi Arts, from Australia’s Northern Territory, hosted a pop-up studio with Agency Projects in the Tait showroom. We joined artists Rose Wilfred, Joy Wilfred, and Janette Murrungun's Weaving Circle to learn the traditional methods of harvesting, drying, and dying the pandanus leaves using local plants and attempt their weaving techniques.

Artists weaving on the beach at Numbulwar | Image sourced from Melbourne Design Week

Artists weaving on the beach at Numbulwar | Image sourced from Melbourne Design Week

OPEN TABLE

Internationally recognised interior designers Flack Studio opened their doors for Open Table, an exhibition composed of nine collaborative artworks in a sensory experience encompassing light, sound, and texture. After watching Architectural Digest’s tour of Troy Sivan’s Flack Studio designed home on repeat last year, it was surreal to be in their space and spy Mokum fabrics in their sample section!

NAHNAN

Injalak Arts and Modern Times presented Nahnan; a showcase of fishing nets, baskets, and wall hangings woven from pandanus leaves by first nations women throughout Gunbalanya in the Northern Territory. The materials are collected exclusively by ‘daluks’ who are members of the community with specific knowledge of the land’s flora and how to properly care for it.

‘Marebu’ by Djibigula Djayhgurrnga | Image sourced from Melbourne Design Week

‘Marebu’ by Djibigula Djayhgurrnga | Image sourced from Melbourne Design Week

VILLAGES

This beautiful exhibition was presented by ceramic artist Sarah Nedovic and art director Stephanie Stamatis in celebration of the geological and anthropological ideas of a village. Visitors were encouraged to light a candle in the space, surrounded by ceramic works reinterpreting nostalgic memories of the land and hope for an optimistic future. 

Attending fairs and tradeshows is an essential part of our design studio's product development and trend forecasting processes. Discover what caught our designer's eyes at Heimtextil, Proposte, and Milan Design Week this year.

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