Melbourne Design Week 2020
Arts & Events - by Open Journal
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'In Absence' by Yhonnie Scarce and Edition Office
11th March, 2020.
We can spend decades feeling that the world stands still. But in an instant the world can change forever through catalytic events. As ecological, economic and social issues converge, design can help us mitigate and respond to these complex problems by testing out possible scenarios, creating new ideas, and imagining the future before it arrives. Design can give us hope and be part of a solution.
Commencing tomorrow, Melbourne Design Week 2020 explores the role of how design can shape life from big-picture thinking around global events to transforming the routines of everyday life. This years program traverses the potential of design to shape life through five themes.
Design Cultures. Melbourne Design Week 2020.
Life is shaped by contexts, beliefs, backgrounds and ideas that bring people together. How does design shape, and how is it shaped by, the multitude of cultures that exist in the world? Viewing design as an act of cultural production, Melbourne Design Week delves into how design can champion diverse cultural perspectives, tacit knowledge and inclusive practices.
Open House Melbourne under the Waterfront
Open House Melbourne Waterfront Program. Melbourne Design Week 2020.
Building upon the success of its 2019 program through continuing its exploration of Victoria’s rivers, waterways and oceans, Open House Melbourne created Waterfront for Melbourne Design Week to explore the role design plays in framing our relationship with water. The waterways of Melbourne and Victoria are under increasing pressure from rapid urban development, extreme weather and invasive species. Boat tours, walks, bike rides, talks and special events throughout the program champion the cultural, ecological and recreational value of Victoria’s rivers, bays and oceans.
The War on Waste Continues. Melbourne Design Week 2020.
Climate change, waste and pollution are some of the defining moral issues of our time, spanning geographies and scale from whole ecosystems to individual consumer choices. This theme has a special focus on e-waste: phones, toys, electronics, lighting, or anything with a battery or a wire. This aspect of the Design Week program follows the supply chain – from the exploitation of natural resources to the meltdown, repair and recycling of consumer goods – in order to learn how to reduce waste.
Design Evolution. Melbourne Design Week 2020.
How will design transform our way of life in the future? Designers are reimagining buildings, vehicles, products and garments made possible by innovative supply chains and groundbreaking materials. From speculative structures, systems and materials, to breakthrough approaches to practice, urban resilience and social impact, this theme advocates a new wave of design thinking.
Healthy Cities | NGV | Melbourne Design Week 2020.
More people live in cities than ever before. Cities offer profound economic and social opportunities but they also come with challenges, including social inequality, human isolation and housing unaffordability. Design increasingly takes on the role of re-addressing the problems of the city and proposes ways to improve health – both mental and physical – for humans, animals, plants and beyond.
This year Melbourne Design Week has expanded to over 300 events, but it holds to its core a Melbourne attitude rather than an aesthetic, in this expansion. This attitude is a responsibility for design to imagine and create better ways of doing things, working towards a better life today.
Melbourne Design Week runs from 12th – 22nd March 2020. Full program here.
Images and Words courtesy of Melbourne Design Week 2020.
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