DESIGN Canberra Opening Weekend | Event Feature

As dusk falls on Friday 10th of November, Canberra will come alive for the opening weekend of the 2017 DESIGN Canberra Festival. The weekend will be a design-lovers’ paradise, with a program packed with events, exhibitions, conferences, talks, open studios and tours devoted to design and architecture.

Start your weekend on Friday evening with Art After Dark, your chance to gallery-hop though a night of art, design and culture, exploring the leafy Inner South Arts Hub after sundown. Grab a bike at M16 Artspace from 6pm and the make your way through the creative precinct, home to galleries, studios, workshops and design spaces including PhotoAccess, ArtSound FM, Bilk Gallery, Canberra Contemporary Artspace Manuka, Canberra Glassworks, M16 Artspace and Megalo Print Studio + Gallery.

Then at 8pm, the Fitters Workshop hosts the opening party, celebrating with a an experimental design Auction featuring work by Canberra’s leading designers. Designed to be a feast for the senses, with an experimental lighting installation, music, local wines, gin and whisky, craft beer and tasty street food, the Live Auction promises to be a great party. The chance to take home your own piece of cutting-edge Canberra design on the night if you’re the successful bidder will make the night even better.

The weekend won’t be all partying – Object Subject, the inaugural design writing conference, is a fascinating program of keynote lectures, panel discussions and talks, exploring the way design speaks to us, and the way we speak about design.

Held on the 10th and 11th of November at the iconic 1959 Shine Dome, the conference brings together designers, writers, critics, bloggers, researchers, collectors, curators and design lovers for the first time to explore the creative and important ways writing has become essential to the future of design. With keynote lectures by acclaimed critic Alice Rawsthorn (New York Times, Freize Magazine) and Dana Tomic Hughes (interior designer, curator and editor of Yellowtrace, one of the world’s most influential design blogs), the conference is an opportunity to participate in important discussions about design.

You will have another opportunity to hear from the keynote speakers on Saturday – Dana Tomic Hughes will participate in a Bloggers Breakfast from 8.30-10am, and Alice Rawsthorn holds a public talk from 2-3pm at the National Gallery of Australia. Then, finish a busy Saturday with Pure Pod’s Designer Twilight Market, featuring ethical designers of clothing, accessories, products and textiles, before heading to the highlight of your Saturday night: The Canberra Modernist Dinner. Hosted by MC Tim ‘Rosso’ Ross and held in the Great Hall at ANU, revisit Canberra’s golden age of mid-century modernism, when the university attracted the best in academia, architecture and politics. Feast on a three-course meal and wine, from a menu inspired by the era, and enjoy a keynote address by acclaimed modernist architectural photographer Darren Bradley.

On Sunday, explore some of Canberra’s most significant houses, when the living rooms are host to pop-up exhibitions, with works for sale by local artists and designers. With 4 houses open at different times throughout the day, the Living Rooms would be enough to make for an exciting Sunday, but there is plenty more to see and do throughout the final day of the opening weekend.

The Artists’ Studio bus tour allows you a peek into the space where Canberra’s artists and designers create the magic, with the opportunity to purchase direct from the makers. Then, find out why Australia’s Parliament House has won so many architectural awards as you explore behind the scenes on one of the Design for Democracy tours. If you’re a photography enthusiast, grab your camera for the Modern Photography Walking Tour of Canberra from 2-4pm, and let award-winning photographer Darren Bradley introduce you to his favourite modernist buildings and share his tips and tricks for capturing these iconic buildings, followed by a brief workshop on post-production.

Don’t miss the Canberra Modernist Market from 10am-4pm at ANU University House, where you can peruse stalls of vintage wares including clothing, jewellery, books and homewares. With a modernist ‘best-dressed’ competition, a baking competition, performances and modernist photo-booth, the market will have something for everyone.

A diverse array of exhibitions will also begin on the opening weekend. Canberra becomes the subject for photography exhibitions by Anthony Basheer and Darren Bradley, with Basheer’s ‘Inside’ focusing on the Telstra Tower and how photography can elevate its subject and Bradley’s ‘Yesterday’s Vision of Tomorrow’ focusing on Canberra’s unique history as a planned city and the utopian vision of the future embraced at that time.

The Activation space in the Canberra Centre brings together Home:Made which curates new lighting, homewares and furniture by Canberra’s most exciting emerging designers, while Local Milan showcases Australian design from the Milan Design Fair 2017. The work and global impact of 6 of Canberra’s leading designers is explored in Six Degrees of Separation through visual window installations throughout the city, bringing these inspirational artists and their work to the attention of the city’s wider community.

This weekend is just the start of DESIGN Canberra festival. If the opening is anything to go by, it will be a busy and engaging three weeks as the city hosts a kaleidoscope of events devoted to art, design and architecture.