Do you find yourself making conscious changes to the way you live in order to actively promote a positive environmental change?
The 2017 DESIGN Canberra Festival is your chance to immerse yourself in the world of environmentally friendly and ethical craft, design and architecture.
We don’t want our fellow eco-warriors to miss out, so here is your roadmap to DESIGN Canberra Festival and all that it holds. Let’s get started…
WEEK 00
Start your 2017 DESIGN Canberra Festival experience off with Entangled Mysteries. This is a new body of three-dimensional textile works by Sally Blake, a visual artist who has an interest in understanding human nature and people’s connection to their environment. Using traditional craft practices, this exhibition explores traditional craft practices – looped, woven and crocheted textile techniques.
WEEK 01
Week 01 of DESIGN Canberra is packed full of eco friendly exhibitions, panel discussions and markets.
On the evening of Saturday 11 November, learn about the wasteful and unsafe nature of the fashion industry at Pure Pod’s Fashionably Numb Ethical Industry Panel. Here you will discover the connections between ethical and unethical production practices and forced habits of consumption in the industry.
After the insightful panel discussion, wander through the Twilight Ethical Designer Market to chat and buy directly from designers. This event will feature ethical designers of clothing, accessories and textiles, as well as stalls from the Australian National University textiles department and the Canberra Institute of Technology. Take in some atmospheric vibes, be entertained, and experience delicious beer tasting and food on a spring twilight evening.
WEEK 02
Kick off Week 02 of the DESIGN Canberra festival on Wednesday 15 November at an Affordable Housing Seminar. This is the second lecture in a three-part series hosted by the Australian Institute of Architects on designing, planning and delivering affordable housing. Speakers with extensive experience in housing development and affordable housing provision have been invited to present talks at this event on the topic of planning for and delivering affordable housing in greenfield or brown field developments. Speakers include Professor Peter Phibbs, Chair of Urban Policy and Planning University of Sydney, and Dr Lindsay Taylor, Senior Partner Lindsay Taylor Lawyers. Bookings can be made through the Australian Institute of Architect’s website.
On Thursday 16 November, visit the opening event of Women in Design at Craft ACT. This showcase will feature a solo exhibition by early-career designer maker Chelsea Lemon consisting of handcrafted furniture pieces focusing on parquetry and plants/foliage found within the Australian environment. This exhibition will be opened by by influential designer and design educator, Mary Featherston.
On Saturday 18 November, clear out your wardrobe in preparation for the Alternate Threads Clothes Swap Party at Smith’s Alternative. With fast fashion being one of the world’s most polluting industries, this afternoon of fashion and friendship will involve swapping clothing and garments. Fashion stylist Nina Gbor will be running this workshop, giving tips on how to be fashionable and sustainable.
WEEK 03
Start your week on Tuesday 21 November by coming along to a free talk by trashion artist, Francis Sollano. The talk will take place at 4pm at Gorman Arts Centre in Braddon. Francis will be talking about his contemporary takes on upcycling garbage into wearable art and converting decaying landscapes to lush urban spaces. Register your attendance here.
On Saturday 25 November, spend your day visiting a list of amazing, local and socially conscious designers and makers at week three of Open studios.
Conclude your DESIGN Canberra experience with a visit to Australian Parliament House for the Speaking Volumes exhibition which will feature works by Chelsea Lemon, Estelle Brides and Elizabeth Paterson. Now that parliamentary proceedings are no longer printed and bound, excess leather bound volumes of parliamentary proceedings provided an opportunity for the Parliament House Art Collection to engage with local designers in order to create new works that reinterpret, reuse and recycle these incredibly evocative objects that span almost 120 years of parliamentary reporting. The designers will explore both the properties of the physical source material as well as the history documented within the volumes.
Looking for more to do? There are many other events that you can partake in, so head to our website for more information.