Franchesca Cubillo
Franchesca Cubillo is a design repairer for Object Therapy.
She is the Senior Curator Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia and has worked in the museum and art gallery sector for the last 25 years. She was employed in several state and national institutions throughout Australia, including the South Australia Museum, the National Museum of Australia, and the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and more recently the National Gallery of Australia. She is a Churchill Fellow, has a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in Anthropology and is a PhD candidate with the Australian National University. Cubillo has written extensively, presented lectures and keynote addresses on subjects such as the repatriation of Australian Indigenous Ancestral Remains, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art and Culture, an Australian Indigenous Museology and Curatorship. Originating from Darwin, she is a Yanuwa, Larrakia, Bardi, and Wardaman woman from the ‘Top End’ region of Australia and is the Inaugural Chair of the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair Foundation since 2010.
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SMaRT@UNSW
SMaRT@UNSW are design repairers for Object Therapy.
Founded in 2008 by ARC Laureate Fellow Scientia Professor Veena Sahajwalla, the Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) at the University of New South Wales works with industry, SMEs, global research partners, NGOs, local, state and federal government, policy makers and the community on the development of innovative environmental solutions for the world’s biggest waste challenges.
Veena, as one of the world’s leading innovators in the field of sustainable materials and an international award-winning scientist and engineer, is passionate about transforming waste produced by modern society into value added green materials. She is well known to Australians through her regular appearances as a judge on the long-running ABC TV series The New Inventors.
SMaRT’s contribution to Object Therapy is being coordinated by SMaRT researcher Dr Farshid Pahlevani, a metallurgical scientist with international experience and expertise in patent development. His research is focused on the utilisation of waste as a raw material and includes collaborations investigating the transformation of household waste into metallic alloys.
Farshid is being assisted by PhD researchers Claudia Echeverria, an architect, textile artist and eco-social entrepreneur investigating the recovery of waste fibres for the development of novel wood-plastic bio-composites, and Heriyanto, who researches glass recycling for the development of polymeric glass composites for building applications.
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Elbowrkshp
Elbowrkshp are design repairers for Object Therapy.
Elbowrkshp came about as the physical manifestation of James B. Young and Elliat Rich – think 19th C. shoemaker meets 21st Century designer. They are based in Alice Springs, that town right in the middle of the vast continent of Australia. They think Alice is pretty unique, it’s wilderness, languages, people, cultures and seasons and their collaborative musings are inspired by this place and it’s stories; parochial, built to last and informed by our designer / maker family fusion. Elbowrkshp revolves around our 650kg hand made concrete and steel table from which they and a variety of guests work. Directly out the front windows sits Paint and Panel (think 90’s airbrush art) in front of a registered sacred site; a perfect dichotomy of the industrial, cultural and natural landscapes of Mbantua.
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Susannah Bourke
Susannah Bourke is a design repairer for Object Therapy.
She is an interdisciplinary designer working across a diversity of mediums. Her practice is research led, looking to the edges of material culture to work with assumptions about undesirable places. These investigations take a critical approach to the ways which value, production and history are perpetuated. The results become functional objects, books, mud and occasionally performances.
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Halie Rubenis
Halie Rubenis is a design repairer for Object Therapy.
She is a freelance design consultant working across a diverse range of projects. To date this has included interpretive design, graphics, marketing strategies, objects and jewellery. Originally completing an apprenticeship as a commercial jeweller, Halie has since studied at Melbourne Polytechnic, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Australian National University. After spending a decade in the commercial design and non-profit arts sectors diversifying her skillset, she established her own studio in Queanbeyan NSW and regularly collaborates with her husband Niklavs. Halie has also facilitated and co-produced a long list of successful collaborations and exhibitions and shares her office with 3 cats and 5 chickens.
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Eleni Kalantidou
Eleni Kalantidou is a repair analyst for Object Therapy.
Eleni Kalantidou is the Program Director of the Master of Design Futures at Griffith University, Queensland College of Art. She is a Design Psychologist, Researcher and Educator. Repair has been at the centre of her research activities through the funded projects ‘Handled with Care’ and ‘Handling E-waste with Care’, publications, workshops, curatorial and community work. Eleni is engaged in exploring repair by adopting a multifaceted approach that involves not only artefacts but also the community and the self. The focus of her work is to bring to the fore the existing cultures of repair and share in urbanised environments and make visible the necessity of re-evaluating contemporary psychologies and the practice of everyday life.
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Yutaka Ohtaki
Yutaka Ohtaki is a design repairer for Object Therapy.
Ohtaki is the master craftsman of Urushi Ohtaki in Murakami, a lacquerware shop dating back to the Taishō era of the early 20th century.
He graduated from the Design Department of Musashino Art University in 1975, after which he joined the family business. His artworks have been recognized with awards in prestigious exhibitions, including the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition and the Japan Contemporary Craft Exhibition.
Previously Ohtaki made abstract and semi-abstract pictorial and sculptural lacquer works, but more recently he has been focusing on traditional Japanese craft, including kintsugi, in which urushi tree sap lacquer is used to repair broken ceramics that are then dressed with gold. Ohtaki intends to produce “heartwarming” objects that create closer interactions between humans, in their everyday lives, and between humans and nature.
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Genevieve Jacobs
Genevieve Jacobs has been a prize-winning newspaper journalist as well as a freelance writer for gardening and fine arts magazines, covering topics principally on history and design. Among Genevieve’s interests are the arts, gardens, the environment, history and politics. She loves hearing people’s stories, and since 2006 she has presented a daily morning show on 666 ABC Canberra examining local news and issues, and talking with everyday people about issues currently affecting them. Genevieve was a co-ordinator for Australia’s Open Garden scheme for several years and has also lectured widely on artists and their gardens, exploring the links between a strong visual aesthetic and surrounding landscape.
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Monique van Nieuwland
Monique van Nieuwland is a designer repairer for Object Therapy.
Monique van Nieuwland (Master of Philosophy-Visual Arts at the ANU – 2004) is a weaver and an Accredited Professional Member of CraftACT. In her practice she uses contemporary techniques and materials (incl. recycled), keeping loom weaving vibrant and relevant as an innovative form of expression.
Monique exhibits her work nationally and internationally. In 2016 she represents Australia at the 15th International Triennial of Tapestry in Lodz, Poland and her work has been selected for the Tamworth Contemporary Textiles Exhibition (1988, 2004, 2014). Van Nieuwland has worked on many commissions for private and public places, including on the film ‘Gods of Egypt’ (Alex Proyas), producing shawls as well as cloth for cloaks and tunics for characters played by Brenton Thwaites and Geoffrey Rush.
Monique van Nieuwland teaches weaving at tertiary level at ANU but also enjoys teaching in the community.
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Corr Blimey
Corr Blimey are Object Therapy design repairers.
Louisa de Smet and Steven Wright conceived Corr Blimey in 2001 while still students at the Canberra Institute of Technology. Corr Blimey use genuine design processes to produce collections that address the problem of the fashion system rather than simply adjusting the fashion product. As designers, they focus on utilising sustainable practices such as ethical manufacturing, waste reducing pattern cutting and enclothed cognition. This enables Corr Blimey to create unique, sculptural garments that highlight the best qualities of the materials and construction techniques. Every collection is distinctive and memorable for the design of the garments and the way they connect to the consumer. Corr Blimey has shown collections nationally and internationally; created costumes for dance and film; participated in interdisciplinary collaborations and private commissions.
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Elise Cakebread
Elise Cakebread is an Object Therapy design repairer.
She is a Melbourne based textile-based artist and designer who founded the textile studio Cakebread in 2013.
Her practice is driven by experimentation and exploration within traditional textile processes and techniques. Driven by experimentation within traditional textile processes and techniques, her work focuses on the tensions created by the unusual or unexpected contrasts that emerge between materials, forms, colours, textures and scale. Through these methods she explores ideas of materiality, tactility, craft, disposability and the ornamental. Her cross-disciplinary approach gives life to sculptural work, decorative objects, products and soft furnishings.
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Thought Collider
Thought Collider are Object Therapy design repairers.
They are an experimental, critical art and design research practice based in Amsterdam – the work of Mike Thompson (UK) and Susana Cámara Leret (ES).
Their work focuses on the exploration of the meanings and values that can be derived from alternative ways of experiencing built and mediated environments, motivated by emerging technologies.
To this end, they conduct design experiments and process driven artworks spanning various media, generating experiential knowledge from the anecdotal or absurd: lived experiences that confront the norm by countering the thing-like nature of organisms, objects and places.
Aside from self-initiated collaborative projects they develop consultancy work for industry and academia to activate novel insights and innovation. Regular collaborators and/or clients include: The Netherlands Metabolomics Centre, Leiden University, The Sino Dutch Centre for Preventive and Personalised Medicine, The Waag Society, Transnatural Art & Design Label, Wageningen University Research Centre, International Flavours and Fragrances, Unilever, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and MU Gallery Eindhoven.
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Kyoko Hashimoto
Kyoko Hashimoto is an Object Therapy design repairer.
She is an internationally recognised contemporary jewellery designer. A graduate of the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, Kyoko has operated studios from Tokyo, Eindhoven, and later Berlin where she opened the concept store We Are All Made of Stuff in the suburb of Neukölln. In 2014 and 2015, Kyoko was Production Manager and Resident Artist in the Metal Design Studio at Adelaide’s JamFactory. Kyoko makes one off and limited edition jewellery and objects with an emphasis on thematic investigation and expression. Her desire for a piece of jewellery to carry a story in a form of a concept or materiality is often imbued with a sense of humour.
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Scott Mitchell
Scott Mitchell is an Object Therapy design repairer.
He holds an honours degree in Fine Art (Sculpture) and a PhD in Design. His art and design practice investigates the social nature of objects with specific focus on modes of amateur production. This field is explored through projects that engage existing communities and emergent, online practices. Scott’s research seeks to understand the significant role material processes play in forming communities and in developing shared meaning structures. Previous projects have engaged with practices of creative consumption (hacking and modding), amateur radio broadcasting, solar tracking and the generation of giant smoke rings. Scott’s projects adopt an open source attitude to knowledge production, the projects often build upon existing DIY practices and feed back into these amateur communities through the sharing of construction methods and build narratives.
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Andrea Bandoni
Andrea Bandoni is an Object Therapy design repairer.
Based in São Paulo, Brazil, she is a designer with a strong focus on contextual studies, sustainability and innovation. She graduated at Design Academy Eindhoven (NL) and since 2011 lives and works in São Paulo. She has had projects exhibited and acquired by museums and galleries in The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy, China and was awarded in Brazil and in the UK. Andrea believes design has to add something relevant to our saturated world, being a creative force for environmental and social change. Her design methods are based on research and experimentation, as observed in ‘The Object Without a Story’ or ‘Objects of The Forest’ – some of her most significant projects. Andrea is also a design teacher and coordinator at IED in São Paulo.
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Daniel Emma
Daniel Emma are Object Therapy design repairers.
Adelaide based Daniel To and Emma Aiston established the design studio Daniel Emma in 2008, to enable them to express their thoughts through industrial design. The studio works on a large variety of projects, ranging from desk objects to installations. Daniel Emma look to create the unexpected from simple objects using simple forms, drawing influence and insight from the diverse culture that Australia presents us with. Their designs aim to be ‘just nice’.
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Benja Harney
Benja Harney is an Object Therapy design repairer.
He is a paper engineer, working both in Australia and internationally, well renowned as a pioneer in his field. As a professional creative, artist and educator, over the last 10 years Benja has led his Sydney-based studio, Paperform, to develop a body of work that pushes the possibilities of the paper medium. Pop-up books, paper sculpture, installation, illustration, packaging, fine art, fashion, animation, set design – Harney makes anything and everything possible within this endlessly inventive material.
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Liam Mugavin
Liam Mugavin is an Object Therapy design repairer.
He designs and makes furniture, lighting and spaces. His practice focuses on traditional techniques, unconventional forms and integrity of materials. A prominent feature of his work is the play between repetition, void and architectonic forms. An aptitude for making and appetite for pushing the boundaries forms the backbone of his practice. After working in northern Japan for four years, Liam returned to Australia in 2013 to train at the Jam Factory in Adelaide. Having gained national recognition and a wide client base, his studio is now based in Sydney where he works on products, commissions and interiors.
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Rohan Nicol
Rohan Nicol is a design repairer for Object Therapy.
Canberra based, he is the Head of Gold and Silversmithing and convener of the Design Arts Degree program at the Australian National University, School of Art. He is an active craftsman, academic and curator. His recent work has ties domesticity and domestic consumption to global experience and the various challenges and crises we face globally. He has also identified the value of intellectual property generated by the creative sector, to the Australian innovation system. He regularly exhibits and presents at major venues and events in Australia and internationally. His work is held in many collections including the Powerhouse Museum and the National Gallery of Australia.
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Andy Marks
Andy Marks is a research investigator for Object Therapy.
Andy Marks is the Program Director of Hotel Hotel’s Fix and Make. He is a social entrepreneur and serial innovator who is drawn to the fault line where society, business, culture and sustainability meet. As a social entrepreneur, he launched SleepingBags Social Enterprise – a UK based textiles up cycling brand that has remade over 11,000 kilos of end of life luxury hotel bed linen in to tote bags, sleepwear and accessories. He’s a leading thinker on grass roots movements in cities around the world. He founded the Vivacity think tank that observed, reported on and celebrated over 200 city based grassroots movements through panel discussions, and online and offline publications. Andy believes the fixers and makers movements around the world are a force for positive change, re-skilling communities, supporting life long learning, stimulating the local economy, creating resilient networks and empowering us all to take back control of our possessions.
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Niklavs Rubenis
Niklavs Rubenis is an Object Therapy design repairer and investigator.
Canberra based, he is a lecturer at the School of Art, Australian National University, and has been professionally employed across many aspects of the furniture and design sectors. This has included high scale manufacture; computer aided design and computer aided manufacture; computer numeric control and laser technology; commercial cabinetry; production and furniture making; shop fit-out; exhibition design; project and design management; public art; urban design; musical instrument making and teaching at community, trade and university levels. Rubenis also maintains an active and varied studio practice comprising of national and international exhibitions, and private and commercial commissions including furniture and objects, lighting installations, window displays, design-construct shop fit-outs, signage and interpretive design.
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Nina Gbor
Nina Gbor is the National Marketing Coordinator at the Australian National University within the College of Business & Economics.
With an undergraduate degree in Sociology and a postgraduate degree in International Development Nina has primarily worked in marketing and market research analysis. Having lived in North America, Africa and Europe she moved to Australia in 2015 to develop her sustainable styling business which specialises in mixing vintage, retro and contemporary clothes to create individual personal style.
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Jacoba Van Lith
Jacoba Van Lith is a textile artist and designer with a passion for creating handcrafted textiles and clothing, using recycled and sustainable materials.
Currently studying a Master of Visual Arts (Textiles) at ANU and with a Bachelor of Fashion Design from CIT, her work is an exploration into creating textiles, valued for more than just being an object, they hold their own narrative.
In a world occupied with fast fashion and restless for the ‘latest’, her work reflects an appreciation for intention and beauty.
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Dan Flatt
Dan Flatt is the head chef at hatted restaurant Monster kitchen and bar at Hotel Hotel.
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Erub Arts
Erub Arts is an arts centre located on Darnley Island, one of the most remote communities in Australia, located 160km north east of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula. Home to 400 Erubam people, the beautiful volcanic island is on the edge of the Great Barrier reef surrounded by deep turquoise waters.
The centre brings together a small but expanding group of artists from four tribal groups. Specialising in hand-built, wood fired ceramics, print-making, jewellery, textiles weaving and ceremonial ornaments, they draw their artistic inspiration from their identity, connection to their totems through traditional and contemporary stories about their land, sea and family connections.
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Melanie Katsalidis
Melanie Katsalidis is a jeweller and the director and founder of Pieces of Eight. Growing up in a creative household, she developed a passion for art and design early in life. She pursued these interests by undertaking a major in art history via Bachelor of Arts degree at Melbourne University (2000) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT University (2003). In 2005 Melanie established Pieces of Eight and over time the gallery has built a solid reputation as one of the most exciting and original of its kind.
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Henry Wilson
Henry Wilson is an Object Therapy design repairer.
He is a designer based in Sydney, Australia. After graduating in Visual Arts (woodwork) from The Australian National University in Canberra, Henry received the HSP Huygens Scholarship for Postgraduate Studies (Design) at The Design Academy Eindhoven. In 2012, Henry set up a research and conceptual design studio, Studio Henry Wilson, producing products, furniture and interiors that are considered and durable, with a focus on honest resolutions and longevity.
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Arvind Gupta
Arvind Gupta graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (1975) with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He has written 15 books on science activities, translated 175 books into Hindi and presented 125 films on science activities on Doordarshan. His first book Matchstick Models & Other Science Experiments was translated into 12 Indian languages and sold over half a million copies. He has received several honors, including the inaugural National Award for Science Popularization among Children (1988), Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT, Kanpur (2000), Indira Gandhi Award for Science Popularization (2008) and the Third World Academy of Science Award (2010). The Toys from Trash viewership has crossed the 41-million mark. Every day, 20,000 books are downloaded from his website.
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Honey Fingers
Nic Dowse studied architecture, but prefers beekeeping. He is the founder of beekeeping kitchen/studio Honey Fingers. In the warmer months, when bees are chasing nectar, Honey Fingers is an urban beekeeping enterprise. In the cooler months, when the bees are inside eating their hard-earned honey, Honey Fingers is a collaborative studio practice.
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Many Many
Rachel Elliot-Jones (Melbourne) and Stephanie Poole (Zurich) are the co-founders of Many Many, an itinerant curatorial and publishing platform concerned with rituals of making and interdisciplinary design practice. Many Many publishes House Wear, an occasional publication about nomadic culture, across art, design, architecture and writing.
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Sarah and Dermot AsIs Sha’Non
Sarah and Dermot are a daughter and father team re-homing bees. With appreciation for the industry and importance of these little pollinators, they collect swarms and remove and re-house bees from places that cause difficulties for people, such as house walls and ceilings or bird boxes. During relocation they take special care to recycle the comb to extract honey and wax from these temporary homes. Sarah has taken a keen interest in video and photography around the hive, with her work being used for training material on beekeeping courses and extending beekeepers knowledge through publications such as The Australasian Beekeeper magazine and the Australian Beekeeping Guide (2015) as well as in promotional/educational posters.
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Guy Keulemans
Guy Keulemans is a design repairer and research investigator for Object Therapy.
He is a multi-disciplinary designer and researcher working across product design, graphics and installation. In his practice he produces critical objects informed by history, philosophy and experimental methodology. Major themes are repair, generative processes, and the environmental concerns of production and consumption. Guy has exhibited in museums and galleries in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Poland and Australia including ARS Electronica, the Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture, COCA Torun and Platform 21, Object, Craft ACT and Craft Victoria. He currently lectures at UNSW Art and Design.
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Suzan Dlouhy
Suzan Dlouhy, designs ready-to-wear, custom-made costumes and has been commissioned for film, dance, opera, burlesque and music videos under the name SZN. SZN is an simplification of Suzan’s first name and reflects how her production process seeks to find the most simplified way to make something. SZN designs for people interested in re-appropriation, process-driven design and lifestyle-based practices. Suzan lets material use dictate the direction of each item, whether it’s finding a way to repurpose, upcycle or recycle a textile.
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Dylan Martorell
Dylan Martorell is an Object Therapy designer repairer.
Transience, improvisation and collaboration form the basis of Dylan Martorell’s Melbourne music-based art practice. Housed within the conceptual framework of a musical diaspora, his work is drawn to ways in which music travels through space and is affected by changes in geography, climate, culture and materials to become an agent for cross-cultural reciprocation. Focusing on the use of site-specific gleaned materials and incorporating elements of upcycling, DIY culture, robotics, and alternative power sources, Martorell’s recent projects conducted in Thailand, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia have explored concepts of transience, portability and sustainability. Dylan has exhibited his work nationally and internationally.
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Naomi Taplin
Naomi Taplin is an Object Therapy design repairer.
Sydney based, she is the founder of Studio Enti, a creative practice specialising in the design and production of porcelain tableware and lighting. Naomi formed Studio Enti in 2013 after completing a Bachelor of Design at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. A strong belief in the necessity of good design and concepts of longevity and sustainability are the major driving forces behind her work. Naomi believes that in order for products to be valued and to fulfill their destiny through use, they need to cleverly cross boundaries of function and beauty and have imbedded within them an inherent worth and respect for the materials and processes that they are created from.
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Steve Feletti
Steve Feletti is the owner of Moonlight Flat Oysters. Moonlight Flat is located on the estuary of the beautiful and pristine Clyde River near Batemans Bay on the south coast of New South Wales. Its watershed is contained almost entirely in protected and uninhabited country in the Budawang and Morton National Parks. Oysters have been farmed in the estuary since the 1800s. Various locations in the estuary are utilised to cultivate oysters through stages of their growth and to achieve the individual flavour, texture and size and Moonlight Flat are famous for their distinct Clair de Lune Bouton®, Moonlight Flat Angasi, Moonlight en Surface®, Label Rouge® and Rusty Wire varieties
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Alison Jackson
Alison Jackson is an Object Therapy design repairer.
She is a Canberra-based gold and silversmith who designs and hand crafts distinctive, pared back tableware and jewellery. Elegant and refined, Alison’s work draws inspiration from the clean lines of geometric shapes, paired against soft satin finishes. Inspired by a love of traditional silversmithing, many of Alison’s tableware pieces retain the mark of the hammer. Alison has won multiple awards for her work and has exhibited nationally and in Germany. Alison has recently completed a large body of work for her first solo exhibition, ‘Table Tools’, which incorporates 48 functional and timeless tableware pieces.
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Rowan McLachlan
Rowan McLachlan is one half of Rowsaan, a metal smithing practice formed with his partner Saan Davidson in Kyneton, Victoria. Rowsaan have been handcrafting everyday objects for the home, including their hand forged kitchen knives, since 2009. Rowan has a background in design – integrating a degree in landscape architecture from RMIT University with a family history of metal working. His body of work explores blacksmithing and silversmithing techniques using steel, brass, and silver to create objects that are understated and nice to hold, touch, and use. Rowan’s knives are made focusing on the details of each knife making process and hand forged in the tradition of Japanese laminated blades, resulting in knives for everyday use that are sharp, durable, and balanced in the hand.
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Cheng Fei
Cheng Fei visits Japan every year to find good knife makers, importing their hand forged knifes to Australia. While good quality knives are durable, there is no knife that can hold sharpness forever without good maintenance. Cheng Fei sources and imports the best ultra fine Japanese natural whetstones from miners and vintage whetstone quarries in Kyoto Prefecture and sells them in Australia under Daodai knives & whetstones imports.
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Richard Whiteley
Richard Whiteley is an Object Therapy design repairer.
He became an apprentice in stained glass at the age of sixteen and holds degrees from the ANU School of Art (BA Glass) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (MFA, Sculpture). Whiteley’s works are held in major museums and private collections worldwide, including the Australian National Gallery and the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning NY. He has received many research grants including a major glass-recycling project with a Sydney based company, Refire Glass. He is currently the Head of the Glass Workshop and Convenor of Craft & Design Workshops at the School of Art, ANU in Canberra.
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Michael Kyrios
Professor Mike Kyrios is Director of the Research School of Psychology at the Australian National University and President of the Australian Psychological Society (APS). Mike’s clinical and research interests focus on obsessive-compulsive disorders, including compulsive hoarding and buying, and psychological treatments including e-therapies. Mike has been consultant to government and media on hoarding and buying problems, and has given keynotes and workshops in his expert areas. He has recieved over $16 million in grant funding and 150 publications. Mike received the 2013 Ian M Campbell Memorial Prize in Clinical Psychology and 2011 Citation for Excellence from the American Psychological Association.
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Russel Koskela
Russel Koskela is the co-founder of Koskela, a Sydney based furniture and product design company and retail store. Designing and manufacturing in Australia for the commercial and retail sectors, Koskela have worked with leading Australian corporations, architects and design firms to furnish domestic, workplace and university interiors. Koskela believe that great design can be used to effect social change and they have collaborated with Yolngu weavers from Elcho Island Arts on interior and lighting products since 2009. The on-going collaboration aims to provide Yolngu weavers with an additional stream of income from their work and develop new and compelling contemporary design products for the interiors market.
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Tim Silverwood
Tim is co-founder of the not-for-profit organisation Take 3 that asks everyone to simply take three pieces of rubbish with them when they leave the beach, waterway or…anywhere. What began as a grass-roots project to clean local beaches has developed into a global movement to ‘change the face of trash’. Tim is also the founder of ReChusable, an enviro-enterprise providing reusable alternatives to disposable products. Tim’s a spokesperson for the Boomerang Alliance, spearheading waste and recycling reform in Australia; a member of the Circular Economy Australia movement; a consultant to government and industry and was the 2014 NSW Government Green Globe Sustainability Champion.
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Avi Amesbury
Avi Amesbury is the CEO and Artistic Director of Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre and leads the team in delivering services that support sector sustainability and professional practice. Amesbury represents Craft ACT, its members and professional craft and design in Canberra and advocates for the sector at all levels of government. Since joining the organisation she has led many initiatives including the development of DESIGN Canberra and the relocation of the Craft ACT store, AGENCY, to Braddon. She manages a professional practice in ceramics, exhibits internationally, and has a studio at Strathnairn Arts.
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Tom Skeehan
Tom Skeehan is furniture, lighting and product studio based in Canberra. He takes a material driven approach and looks to create long term lived experiences. Skeehan combines simplicity with precise workmanship to create beautifully resolved pieces.
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Dale Hardiman
Dale Hardiman is an Object Therapy design repairer.
Melbourne based Dale is the co-founder of furniture and object brand Dowel Jones, represents the commission platform 1-OK CLUB and design collective LAB DE STU. Dale’s practice simultaneously focuses on items of mass-production for Dowel Jones, and singular works under his own name that focus on more conceptual ideas. Hardiman’s theoretical enquiry into design explores the localisation of the production of objects and is manifested in his chosen materials and overall practice. Operating from a studio in a rubber factory in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne, Dale has won numerous artistic and design awards and regularly exhibits nationally and internationally.
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Ken Neale
Ken Neale has an encyclopaedic mind on all 20th century classic design matters. He has a wonderful but unexplainable understanding of how objects should be assembled. Ken has a staggering collection of designer pieces, a small portion of which is crammed into his famous 20th Century Modern store in Darlinghurst, Sydney. Ken’s fingerprints, together with his co-conspirators Nectar Efkarpidis and Don Cameron, can be found throughout Hotel Hotel. From furniture and fabric selection, botanical and object arrangements, lighting and vintage book displays.
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Nectar Efkarpidis
Nectar Efkarpidis is co-founder of Hotel Hotel and Molonglo Group – the artisan focused property developer and production house responsible for conceiving of Hotel Hotel and its various programs. Nectar has a fierce insistence on sustainable projects and he crafts ventures and endeavours that help support local artists, designer-makers and small industry. His curatorial hands have been all over every aspect of Hotel Hotel. In Hotel Hotel, Nectar has created a public space that has become a vessel for ongoing cultural and artistic creation, connecting all kinds of people.
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Don Cameron
Don Cameron collaborated with Ken Neale and Nectar Efkarpidis to curate Hotel Hotel. From the rooms to the public spaces. His method is one of staging for meaningful experiences. The revivalist approach to the room interiors coupled with a conviction not to compromise on detail has meant that where objects weren’t available or were nonexistent they were then designed by Don, for and under the creative direction of Hotel Hotel, and fabricated by craftsmen and artisan companies.
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Trent Jansen
Trent Jansen is an Object Therapy design repairer.
He is based in Thirroul, Australia. Trent holds a Bachelor of Design from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in Sydney, spending a portion of his degree in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. After a period working under Marcel Wanders in Amsterdam, Trent returned to Australia to set up a conceptual design studio in Sydney, before moving his practice to Thirroul on the New South Wales South Coast. Trent Jansen applies his conceptual method to the design of products and furniture for manufacturers including Moooi, DesignByThem and Tait Outdoor. This conceptual approach is also applied to the design of limited edition and one-off pieces for clients including the Molonglo Group and design galleries Broached Commissions and Gallery All.
Trent Jansen featured with a painting by Shorty Jangala Robertson.
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Valerie Kirk
Scottish born artist Valerie Kirk is Head of Textiles at the Australian National University. While actively maintaining her practice, she has lead community tapestry projects and textile research tours, written a major thesis on woven tapestry, directed significant textile projects and created major commissioned works. She has held solo exhibitions and presented her work extensively in USA, Europe, Australia, NZ and SE Asia. Awards such as the HRH Prince Charles Award, Australia Council grants, Muse Arts Woman of the Year award and the Arts ACT Creative Arts Fellowship mark substantial success and her artwork is documented in the Telos Portfolio publication.
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Karim Haddad
Karim Haddad established Tharwa Valley Forge in 2003. The forge is located in the village of Tharwa just south of Canberra. The Forge aims to be the best knife making school in Australia and offers a wide range of courses. Over the years the forge has introduced hundreds of people to the art of custom knife making.
Pascal Molenberghs
Dr Molenberghs obtained his PhD in 2009 from the University of Leuven (Belgium). After postdoc positions at the University of Queensland, Dr Molenberghs moved to Monash University at the beginning of 2015. He is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences and director of the Monash Social Neuroscience lab. His current research is supported by a DECRA and Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship. This year he received the Young Tall Poppy Science Award. Dr Molenberghs uses brain imaging technologies to get a better understanding of how the human brain operates.
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Caolan Vaugh
Caolan Vaugh is the head brewer at Byron Bay’s Stone and Wood Brewing Company.
Bruce Jeffreys
Bruce has worked extensively in both the private and government sectors. Until 2003, he was an integral part of the NSW State Government’s Sustainability Unit, based within the NSW Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources. Bruce and Nic Lowe founded GoGet in 2003 with three vehicles and 12 members. Today, GoGet, Australia’s first and largest professional car sharing service, has over 2,000 vehicles and 60,000 members and operates in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Brisbane. In 2014 Bruce and Jason McDermott founded Dresden Optics, launching a patented eyewear system designed and manufactured in Sydney. Bruce is also Founding Director of the Company Foundation, creators of Sydney’s first permanent Makerspace.
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Anne Brennan
Anne Brennan is an artist and writer. She is the ANU School of Art Undergraduate Convenor. Anne’s research interests focus on history, memory and commemoration; she is especially interested in the way in which these are configured in public artifacts and institutions such as the museum and the memorial.
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Blue Gum Community School
Blue Gum Community School is a small community-based, secular independent school with campuses in Dickson and Hackett, offering education programs for 0-16 year olds; playgroups, pre-school, primary school, middle school and high school. Blue Gum adopts a personalised, strengths-based approach to education where every student can be a successful, robust learner.
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