Melbourne Design Week is taking over Abbotsford Convent this May for 11 days of exhibitions, workshops and installations.
Running from 14 to 24 May, Melbourne Design Week at Abbotsford Convent brings together more than 230 designers for a packed program of over 20 exhibitions, installations, workshops, launches, tours and talks. The lineup spans the precinct’s heritage buildings, venues and open spaces, covering everything from furniture and collectible objects to textiles, craft and material innovation.
The program features several standout shows. 100 CHAIRS gathers contributions from over 100 Australian creatives, studios, architects and practices, each using the chair as their creative springboard. Every piece on display has been designed and made locally. In the Bishop’s Parlour, Studio Shields presents Synthesis, an installation where contemporary collectible works are arranged as domestic vignettes set against the building’s original architecture.
Melbourne Design Week at Abbotsford Convent
- 14 – 24 May
- Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers Street, Abbotsford
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Over in Mural Hall, designer Tom Fereday presents Arum, a collection of sand-cast works investigating the transformation of raw material through casting processes. Lines of Force by Ash Allen occupies the St Heliers Street Gallery with steel weldmesh recreations paying tribute to three celebrated female designers: Simone LeAmon, Helen Kontouris and Laura McCusker.
The program gets hands-on too. William Dorset’s The Sheepskin Suite transforms the Salon into an immersive living room draped floor to ceiling in sheepskin, where visitors are encouraged to wander, touch and connect with the material’s texture and versatility. LOST HiDE, presented by LOCAL DESIGN and Emma Elizabeth, champions Australian design through a conceptually driven, object-led show informed by international curatorial experience including past Milan presentations.
PAGEANT: A Retrospective (2010–2025)
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Later in the run, PAGEANT: A Retrospective (2010–2025) lands at the Industrial School with installation-based work spanning fashion, design, visual art and film. The Cyclic group show, featuring six practitioners from Craft Victoria’s Fresh! Fellowship 2025 cohort, brings together woodworking, metalsmithing, textiles, bio-materials, lighting and ceramics in the Oratory from 21 to 24 May.
The Convent Courtyard hosts a cluster of programming under the Reclaim and Transform banner, presented by UnitePlayPerform and designer Melissa Gilbert. The initiative includes outdoor installations, a concept store showcasing the stories embedded in overlooked objects, and immersive playshops where designers, artists and architects test ideas through rapid cycles of building, breaking and remaking using reclaimed resources.
Rounding out the offering, Clothes for Chairs is a workshop exploring how post-consumer clothing can become functional seating for reclaimed chair frames. Ink & Spindle opens its studio for live large-format screenprinting demonstrations on 16, 23 and 24 May, and a precinct-wide walking tour led by design editor Alice Blackwood runs on 15 and 16 May. Melbourne Design Week is an initiative of the Victorian government through Creative Victoria.
For more information, head here.
