Useful Objects, a new gallery specialising in collectible design, will open its doors on 15 May at 47 Easey Street, Collingwood in Melbourne.
The gallery, underpinned by a designer partnership model, presents the work of vital and dynamic designer-makers. Part of Melbourne Design Week, the inaugural exhibition Desire x Design will take place from 15 May 2024 to 15 June 2024.
Participating designers:
- Elliot Bastianon
- Danielle Brustman & Edward Linacre
- Jordan Fleming
- Lisa Gorman
- Trent Jansen
- Jay Jermyn
- Marlo Lyda
- Joanne Odisho
- Marcus Piper
- Dean Toepfer
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Addressing a gap in the Australian collectible design market, Useful Objects was established to work with designers to tell compelling stories of our time through objects that challenge the norms of function and materials in sophisticated and unexpected ways. Dr Simon Maidment founded Useful Objects as a gallery, retail platform and interlocutor to the public; it will function as a point of contact, attractor, and advocate for the makers and their works.
For the opening show Desire x Design, desire is the subject of the first thematic exhibition. Through materials, ideas and forms, a group of influential designers flesh out the impulse to want – found at the heart of the Design Week prompt ‘Design The World You Want’ – and question whether the object of desire is the catalyst or endpoint of this fundamental force. The first half of the exhibition is a rejoinder to the influence the rampant drive has over the design industry. In contrast, the second half celebrates the sensation itself, as a source of meaning and transcendence.
Useful Objects will showcase a twelve-month program of exhibitions and present objects that engage with the issues and conversations of today, and contribute to the conversation about art and design in Australia.
The inaugural Useful Objects exhibition, Desire x Design, will open on 15 May 2024 and is part of the Melbourne Design Week program.
For further details, visit the website here.
