Care From Wherever: DESIGN Canberra
Tags: Australia, Care, Design, Festivals, Art

The Australian design festival has gone to great lengths to accommodate online viewers so they can participate in a variety of activities, celebrating the vast forms of art and design created under the theme of Care.

Emma-Kate Wilson /MutualArt

Artist Installation — Civic Square. Photo credit: 5 Foot Photography

The program of DESIGN Canberra is a full and vivid experience to celebrate the design, art and culture of Canberra. Usually, DESIGN Canberra appears to be a festival that must only occur in the capital. However, in times like these, we can look online to experience the program. Not just Australians who are limited to travel, but further afar, international guests can engage with the thematic of Care — a poignant marker to the world as 2020 draws closer to its end.

The artistic director of DESIGN Canberra Festival and CEO of Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre, Rachael Coghlan, shares her proudest highlight: “A welcome opportunity to connect in this city of design and take some time to appreciate the natural and built beauty that is all around us.”

Open Studios. Photo credit: 5 Foot Photography

When Covid lockdowns hit, the festival questioned whether they should continue. “We surveyed our community, and the overwhelming response was to proceed with DESIGN Canberra,” Coghlan says. “It’s never been more important to support the arts, to build visibility for contemporary craft and design, and help artists make a living from their practice.”

The theme of Care was first proposed in 2019, as Australia faced extreme weather conditions — bushfires, hailstorms and flooding in the space of three months. No one could have been prepared for what followed as the pandemic gripped global communities. “The 2020 festival program will focus on giving back to the community, building caring and creative experiences, and producing enduring content to support our city’s and our sector’s recovery,” the festival’s director promises.

CraftACT. Artist credit: Marilou Chagnaud. Photo credit: 5 Foot Photography

“Our 2020 theme of Care seems timelier than ever. The value of care is more important than ever: for community, for creativity, for craft and for our world,” Coghlan adds. “I love that DESIGN Canberra can bring new awareness, new audiences and a new appreciation of our city of design.”

For the last four years, DESIGN Canberra has nominated a designer-in-residence; this year, Kirstie Rea captures the sentiments of Care in blown-glass installations. With care (2020) was initially created during a residency in Calgary, Canada, in 2011. Surrounded by the cold and snow, on the other side of the world, far away from her family, the artist was left thinking about how we attribute values of care, comfort and warmth.

Kirstie Rea, With care, 2020. Image Lean Timms

The result was a glass blanket, both incredibly fragile, yet strong; it has to be handled with care. The folded blanket takes shape within a timber frame — a doorway it appears — a gentle metaphor for finding refuge in the home, offering a stirring depiction of our time in lockdown.

In the capital’s CBD, fellow glass artist Hannah Gason produces a graphic intervention. Titled Glimmer (2020), the artist re-imagines the glass mosaic by Frank Hinder, Star Ceiling (1963) in Monaro Mall’s iconic City Walk entry. “Hinder’s mosaic, located above, focuses on the vibrant night sky, [my work is] responding to the tonal shifts of the fragments within Star Ceiling, the contrasting patterns of my design draws the passerby’s eye to the pillars of Monaro Mall and up to Star Ceiling,” Gason maintains.

“We are lucky in Canberra to experience wide open spaces and the natural beauty surrounding the city,” the artist continues. “My design celebrates this light and aims to bring a sense of positivity into the city in a year that has been challenging for so many.”

Medusa Opening. Photo credit: 5 Foot Photography

Like Hinder’s Star Ceiling and Monaro Mall, most of Canberra is vastly inspired by mid-century design, its most significant period of growth taking place in 1950–1975, which was closely overseen by a professional planning body (NCDC). As such, design is holistically blended within all aspects of the city. The author of Canberra House and a Canberra architecture expert, Martin Miles, will be conducting tours around the capital — something which can also be engaged independently with downloadable maps and online zines.

Through ‘DESIGN, Anytime’ the online visitor is privy to a full program of tours, online exhibitions and catalogue essay. Highlights also include live-streamed keynote talks by Bernard Salt on the future of suburbia, Dominic Hofstede’s reflection on Australia’s graphic design from 1960 to 1990, while a webinar by contemporary artist Daniel Boyd (Kudjala/Gangalu) and Edition Office discusses their sculptural pavilion, For My Country, which commemorates the military service and experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

DC Glass. Photo credit: Anthony Basheer

For the first time, the opening week of DESIGN Canberra also lands in NAIDOC week — a celebration of the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. To honor the first people of Australia, the festival embraces art and design by First Nation makers on Ngunnawal Country.

Ever an essential message to non-Indigenous Australians, Luritja artist Kayannie Denigan transforms the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin with her artwork My Country (2020). In graphic pops of yellow, pinks and navy against pastel blue, imprinted on the concrete by the water’s edge, the artist transports the different eco-systems — the scrub, water bodies, boulders and hills — from across her country in Central Australia to her new home in Canberra.

“As I flew over the land of my ancestors, I was struck by the beauty of the harsh desert. It was the first time I had been back to Central Australia since I was a child,” Denigan explains. “Upon returning home, I set out to incorporate these separate elements in my art, inspired by my Nanna’s country in Central Australia and my upbringing on Cape York.”

Artist Talk (Lucy Irvine). Photo credit: 5 Foot Photography

Whereas Denigan celebrates the color and life of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, in an exhibition at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra-based artist James Tylor explores the other side of this narrative. From an untouched landscape is lacking color, as a black and white palette explores the effects of colonization and the resulting absence of Aboriginal culture.

The viewer is welcomed to delve into these histories and narratives from wherever they have internet. From an untouched landscape is fully documented online, with an image gallery, catalogue, and essay. We can acknowledge that in person is always better, as would be the case with My Country, as the graphic color intersects within the landscape, the earthy smells of the lake and surrounding mountains anchor one on the country. Yet, in a time of lockdowns and travel restrictions, we are still privy to the artworks.

From extensive online reading material to downloadable city design maps, audiences across the world are invited to engage with DESIGN Canberra. At the same time, those more local are welcome to stop and consider the programming, visiting artist talks and workshops, and remembering to care — complete with yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. DESIGN Canberra recognizes and celebrates the lasting effects of a healthy and thriving art and design community.

DESIGN Canberra

November 9–29, 2020

designcanberrafestival.com.au