The Powerhouse has announced the full lineup for the 2022 edition of Sydney Design Week, which will feature a program of exhibitions, talks, film screenings and workshops across seven days beginning on 15 September.
Curated by the festival’s Creative Director Stephen Todd, this year’s event is titled ‘Making No’. The program will explore the role of design across a multitude of disciplines including industrial, interiors and graphics.
“Sydney Design Week celebrates designers who are defining the cultural moment in Sydney and around the world. This year’s theme ‘Making Now’ expands the parameters of ‘design’ to explore myriad expressions across disciplines and industries. The program will set the scene for the future of design,” Todd says.
Powerhouse Chief Executive Lisa Havilah is delighted to present the festival once more following a strenuous last few years.
“Powerhouse Ultimo has a renewed focus on design and its importance in shaping our world. Sydney Design Week offers a dedicated platform to spotlight the incredible innovation propelling the Australian design industry, whilst also connecting audiences with the work of remarkable international designers engaging with social and cultural issues of today,” she says.
An exhibition curated by Local Design Director Emma Elizabeth will present new works from 20 prominent Australian designers, titled ‘New Australian Design’. Canadian Designer and Massive Change Network CEO Bruce Mau will present a keynote in partnership with UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture on Mau’s life-centred design principles in the context of the city, setting the stage for their new collaboration titled Massive Action Sydney on 18 September. Doshi Levien’s Nipa Doshi will also be presenting on 18 September, presenting a keynote on the importance of cross-cultural perspectives when designing for leading manufacturers and cultural institutions.
Sydney’s new Ace Hotel will host a number of talks and workshops, headlined by Other Architects Director Grace Mortlock and Powerhouse Director, First Nations Emily McDaniel discussing the importance of creativity in the urban context. CicciaBella Parramatta’s Fiona Lynch and Pilu’s Mitch Orr will explore the role of design in hospitality at Ace’s Kiln, which the pair designed. Interior designer David Flack, Powerhouse Creative Industries Resident Nell, designer Elliat Rich and sculptor Sanné Mestrom will delve into pre- and post-industrial creativity on 16 September.
Making Western Sydney is a walking tour of the major new architecture around Parramatta CBD with principals from design studios including Fender Katsalidis, Hills Thalis, Blight Rayner, JPW and Tzannes, followed by an afternoon of public talks and a live-streamed presentation on the new flagship Powerhouse Parramatta, designed by Paris/Tokyo studio Moreau Kusunoki and Genton, which will be held on 17 September.
Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert will unveil the research-led collection of filmmaker, photographer and interior designer Don Cameron who created his first signature range of furniture and lighting inspired by the Brutalist architecture of post-WWII Europe, which runs for a month beginning on 1 September. In a combined open house event, Smart Design Studio and DesignByThem will invite the public into their studios and present an exhibition of new work launching DesignByThem’s new gallery space on 18 September.
First Nations design practitioners Jo Kinniburgh and Shannon Foster of Bangawarra studio will share new insights, perspectives and stories through a walking tour, Design Studio In Focus until 18 September.
The Cultivated program presented by CULT import furniture showroom will invite visitors behind-the-scenes of the restoration process of ten Arne Jacobsen ‘Series 7’ chairs for two days, beginning 17 September, while for five whole weeks the Tin Sheds Gallery will be transformed into a spatial laboratory with a new exhibition Banquet inspired by food production and Roman Emperor Nero Germanicus’ rotating Golden Banquet Room, featuring architectural machines, drawings and performance, beginning 1 September.
From 17 September, Golden Age Cinema will present a series of films from designers across the decades and how they’ve shaped today’s international design landscape. Workshops include Making Paper Plane Chairs, inspired by the Paper Planes armchair designed by Doshi Levien for Moroso on 17 and 18 September. Community clay workshops will be led by local ceramicists whose works appear throughout Ace Hotel Sydney on the 17th and 18th of September.
The program will be launched in its entirety with a special Powerhouse Late featuring a conversation with Curious Practice, the studio behind the third Powerhouse Architecture Commission, Cadeau and designers from the New Australian Design exhibition on 15 September at Powerhouse Ultimo.
Feel free to access the full program here.
