Sydney Design Week 2022
Sydney Design Week launches 15-22 September 2022 at the Powerhouse in partnership with Ace Hotel Sydney and Western Sydney University — bringing together designers across the country.
Cordon Salon, courtesy of Oigall Studio. Photo: Annika Kafcaloudis
Nipa Doshi for Vogue India, courtesy of Nipa Doshi. Photo: Rodrigo Carmuega. Main image - Ace Hotel. Photo: Anson Smart
We spoke to three key players ahead of the Sydney Design Week 2022 festivities, Creative Director Stephen Todd, Powerhouse First Nations director Emily McDaniel, and Sydney gallerist Sally Dan Cuthbert.
Creative Director Stephen Todd
Hunter & Folk: Hi Stephen, when did you come up with the theme of 'Making Now’?
Stephen Todd: This is my third and final year as Creative Director of Sydney Design Week. The first in 2020 was themed Hybrid and anchored by a special commission of 10 designers; around the same time as the commissioning process began, COVID happened, and so we had only a small window of opportunity to show work IRL. In 2021 we anticipated lockdowns, and so programmed online only with international speakers responding to the theme ‘Hyper-Connected’.
This year is the first time we are able to present Sydney Design Week in real life, so I wanted to focus on the physicality and craftsmanship of making in design. It is about breaking open of the modernist idea of the lone genius, flagging and nurturing the resurgence of small studios and manufacturers. It can also be read as ‘making the moment’ and this allows a reflection in our extensive talks program on post-pandemic Sydney – which includes the exciting new developments of Greater Sydney to the Parramatta where we have a deep engagement with Western Sydney University.
Hunter & Folk: Can you tell us more about the locations of the Powerhouse Museum and Ace Hotel. What are their connections to design?
Stephen Todd: Design and industry is central to the identity of the Powerhouse: it began 140 years ago as the Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum, and the current Powerhouse Ultimo renewal plan will see the rearticulated museum focus squarely on design, anchoring a new creative precinct.
Ace Hotel as an international hospitality brand founded in the late-1990s has always been focused on design and the design community. The particularity of the hotel in Sydney is that it’s very much about making – so feeds in beautifully to the SDW2022 theme, Making Now. It was the site of the oldest colonial era kiln and so has a strong ceramics story which interior designer David Flack has used as the springboard to his thinking about the curation of the lobby spaces which showcase ceramics by some of Sydney’s most exciting artists.
Powerhouse and Ace are only about a 10 min walk from one another which makes for a vibrant urban walking trail.
Add to that the Eddy Multi Spaces at the base of Central Station – which will officially open in October, and so the four installations as part of SDW are a foretaste of an 18-month activation by Right Angle – and you begin to get the feeling of a very design-focused neighbourhood.
Hunter & Folk: What a diverse list of designers and venues for this year’s Sydney Design Week. What are some of your highlights?
Stephen Todd: The New Australian Design exhibition at Powerhouse Ultimo showcases established and emerging designers and students from Sydney, NSW and across state lines. The concept for Curator Emma Elizabeth was that for every established designer we had to invite a new young designer, including two young design students from UNSW Art & Design. From 2016 to 2019, creative director Emma Elizabeth rallied her fellow Australian designers to create new products to show at the prestigious Milan Furniture Fair. For Sydney Design Week, she has done the same – selecting about two dozen designers to create new work or new iterations of existing work in response to the Making Now theme.
Alongside the Nipa Doshi Keynote, OFF-SITE by Oigal Projects, and Play – community clay workshop with David Flack, Don Cameron at Sally Dan Cuthbert is highlight. Don trained at Central Saint Martins in London and graduated at the turn of the millennium. He was trained in filmmaking and after graduating was commissioned to direct ground-breaking creating music videos for groups including Blur, Garbage and Pet Shop Boys. He started working commercially across the Channel and began photographing extraordinary, post-WWII Brutalist monuments, churches, and bunkers. These photographs in turn informed Don’s first complete range of furniture; monumentally sensual chairs, tables, desks, lighting, and a sofa system carved from solid walnut, welded steel and sumptuous suede upholstery.
Bell Curve (2013) Courtesy of Sanné Mestrom and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
Western Sydney University Innovation Hub by Tzannes and Blight Rayner. Photo: Ben Guthrie
“Design is human ingenuity made manifest in objects and systems with a measure of utility. Beyond solving problems through advanced systemisation – the modernist mantra – it’s about meaningful contributions to culture through creativity.”
‘I find notions of place making somewhat redundant and human centric. I believe the place is already ‘made’, and in many instances what we need as a conscious ‘unmaking’ of that place. In essence, it is about a deeper understanding of what is already present on Country,’ says Emily McDaniel. Pictured: Parramatta Escarpment Boardwalk by Hill Thalis. Photo: Jackie Chan
Gallerist Sally Dan Cuthbert
Hunter & Folk: Hi Sally, can you tell us more about Don Cameron's latest collection?
Sally Dan Cuthbert: Don Cameron is an established Australian, multi-disciplinary artist who works across photography, film and design.
For 20 years, Cameron’s almost obsession with Europe’s monumental, 20th century concrete structures, first captured as atmospheric, photographic objects in his 2020 solo exhibition, Communion, are revisited in a series of beautifully crafted design objects in Translations.
With a deep knowledge and understanding of all facets of design, Cameron has transformed an existing building into a photograph, with the shapes and forms, in turn, translated again, this time through the medium of functional sculpture. Steel, timber and nubuck are meticulously handled to form an editioned series of sophisticated lights, desk, sofa elements and coffee table.
Translations is an explicit example of how architecture, art, design and sculpture merge, imperceptibly, one into another to become the important complements to living.
Hunter & Folk: Your gallery reveals the grey area between art as design and design as art. Perfect for this year's design week theme. What are your thoughts on this?
Sally Dan Cuthbert: Yes, the gallery opened to provide a permanent platform in Australia for the presentation of visual and functional art. Coming from an advisory background of more than 30 years, I don’t see art and design as distinct disciplines. For me work which is instigated by an artist, designer or architect’s hand is in some form, art. This is the way both my clients and I always approach collecting. Important collecting principles are the same and include: historical knowledge of the collecting area; status of the artist; and visual examination.
Powerhouse First Nations director Emily McDaniel
Hunter & Folk: Hi Emily, as First Nation Director at the Powerhouse Museum, can you share some contemporary First Nation designers you have on your radar?
Emily McDaniel: I have long been a fan of Lucy Simpson’s approach to design making and thinking. I am also looking forward to Bangawarra Design Studio’s In Focus walking tour for Sydney Design Week. Co-Directors Jo Kinniburgh and Sydney registered Traditional Owner and D’harawal Knowledge Keeper Shannon Foster will take an in-depth look into the methodologies and pedagogies employed by Bangawarra.
Hunter & Folk: In your research and profession, have you found methodologies modern designers can draw from Indigenous design practices?
Emily McDaniel: ‘Designing with Country’ is one example of a methodology modern designers can draw from Indigenous design practices. Designing with Country is an approach to design that recognises the unique systems of knowledge and ways of being of First Nations people, as opposed to our existing human centered Western systems of understanding.
Hunter & Folk: In your discussion for Sydney Design Week, you'll be expanding on the theme of 'the importance of creativity in the urban context'. Can you give our readers a brief outline of your thoughts on this?
Emily McDaniel: As a First Nations Curator in public space and on Country, I believe that creativity, memories, histories and story are already embedded on Country. It is our responsibility as designers to articulate those narratives and connect those stories to people who are living in Sydney every day, working towards a greater understanding of and relationship to Country.