Here-Say
During the State of Design 2010, The Department of Counter Culture in partnership with Architects for Peace will host ‘Here-say’ a speaker program and conversation forum in which mainstream consumption practices and values are challenged and alternatives considered and discussed.
THURSDAY | JULY 15
Situated on the level 2 Lonsdale Street bridge within Melbourne Central, ‘Here-say’ launches the larger State of Design Counter Point program with a keynote presentation on opening night by Professor Kim Humphery called Excess: Anti-consumerism in the west.
This is followed by Future Alternatives: response, a suite of presentations by practitioners that aim to re-make and provoke existing production and consumption practices: Casey Jenkins & Rayna Fahey (Craft Cartel); Kate Luckins (Clothing Exchange) Kat Ashworth (Citizens of Elysium); Grace McQuilten (The Social Studio). Professor Humphery will facilitate a Q & A forum.
MONDAY | JULY 19
‘City Suburbia: Curated tollways and themed restaurants, a travelogue by Anthony McInneny of the city’s insinuation on the suburbs after the suburbs redesigned the city.
TUESDAY | JULY 20
The Social Enterprise discussion features Shanaka Fernando’s account of Lentil as Anything and Rebecca Scott from STREAT.
WEDNESDAY | JULY 21
Architects for Peace discuss and launch their publication Intencity – the political city.
THURSDAY | JULY 22
Associate Professor Soumitri Varadarajan will presents topic for conversation with Participatory Design.
COST:
Free.
TIME:
All talks start at 7pm.
LOCATION:
Level 2 Bridge
Above Lonsdale Street, Melbourne Central
Cnr Latrobe Street and Swanston Street, Melbourne
Kim Humphery
Associate Professor of History and Social Theory. Associate Dean, Research & Innovation; Design & Social Context Portfolio. Deputy Head, Research & Innovation School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning RMIT University.
Kim Humphery works at RMIT University in Melbourne and is an internationally respected writer on consumer culture and the history of shopping. Kim is a
regular media commentator on consumption issues and has been a keynote speaker at international conferences on consumerism and sustainable
consumption. His books include Shelf Life: Supermarkets and the Changing Cultures of Consumption (CUP, 1998) and Excess: Anti-Consumerism in the West
(Polity 2010).
Grace McQuilten | The Social Studio
Grace McQuilten is the founder of The Social Studio, a social enterprise that transforms excess manufacturing materials from the fashion industry into orginal new design through the talents of young people from refugee communities in Melbourne.
The Studio is a dynamic space with a shop-front, open studio, and cafe that encourages community connections through regular talks, events and workshops. Garments created at the Studio are sold from the shop in Smith St, Collingwood and from mobile shopping carts, designed by students at RMIT and launched at this year’s State of Design Festival.
Grace is an Honourary Fellow in the School of Culture and Communications at the University of Melbourne.
Kate Luckins | The Clothing Exchange
Kate Luckins is the founder of The Clothing Exchange, a unique clothes swapping event that has inspired a swapping movement in Australia! She has a Masters of Fashion from RMIT University (on sustainable fashion consumption) and is currently finishing her PhD research into the sustainable lifestyles of young people. Kate is a sustainable consumption researcher who writes for Peppermint Magazine and is very keen to reconcile her environmental conscience with her love of fashion.
Rayna Fahey and Casey Jenkins | The Craft Cartel
Casey Jenkins (cuntisnotadirtyword.blogspot.com) and Rayna Fahey (radicalcrossstitch.com) formed the Craft Cartel in 2007 as an organisation to support crafters who specialised in the radical and the weird. The Craft Cartel has run markets, the Trashbag Rehab craft workshop series, the Anti-Gentrification Festy Festival, Flock and Flog Markets, and Fashion Jams but to name a few. The Craft Cartel also produces a podcast and does a bunch of behind the scenes collective work to help promote craft and support crafters.
Kat Ashworth | Citizens of Elysium
Following Kat Ashworth’s two-year stint working alongside Cindee Smith at Melbourne Design and Fashion Incubator, the designer began developing the Citizens of Elysium label. Her desire to design and create with the absence of machinery led her to develop a strong relationship with old leather jackets. This marrying of concept and process evolved into the label’s niche product, vests.
After three years of creating custom vests and other styles for individuals from all walks of life, the label and Kat’s design skills have gained a cult- like following world wide, particularly within creative networks. Kat’s initial vision of growing the label and meeting demand included hand-picking female artists from around Melbourne and training them in the developed design process, imparting constant direction and nurturing to each artist. More recently, Kat has led the business into its next phase: a concentrated solo expedition that sees her transfer current business strengths into the future development of concept and process in ethical production.
Shanaka Fernando | Lentil as Anything
Shanaka Fernando was born in Sri Lanka to an Irish Catholic mother and a father of Portuguese descent. He attended a Buddhist school and was involved in theatre and choreography before immigrating to Australia in his early twenties. Fernando studied law for three years, travelled extensively in the third world, and was increasingly drawn to social justice issues.
In 2000 he opened an experimental vegetarian restaurant in St Kilda called ‘Lentil as Anything’ that observes an innovative policy of ‘no set prices’; customers pay only what they can afford or what they think the meal was worth. Fernando subsequently relinquished his capital in the restaurant and turned it into a not-for-profit cooperative and youth training enterprise. The concept has expanded to several restaurants around Melbourne, demonstrating that a commercial enterprise can operate in a socially responsible and altruistic way. ‘Lentil as Anything’ is a bold social experiment that respects difference, promotes trust and defies a consumerist society.
Rebecca Scott | STREAT
Bec determined her professional path by flipping a coin to decide if she should study science or visual arts at Newcastle Uni. Although science won, it only took her a couple of years in the lab to realise she was way better at talking about science and drawing her microscopic specimens than being stuck behind a lab bench. So in 1994 she ran away and joined the Shell Questacon Science Circus as the Slime Queen. Later she joined the CSIRO, Australia’s premier science research organisation, as a Science Communicator where she worked for a decade in roles including National Coordinator of CSIRO’s Double Helix Club, Manager of Internal Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics Manager.
Over the years Rebecca’s spare time has been split between undertaking international development or arts projects. These include development projects in Vanuatu and Vietnam, founding the Scinema international film festival, helping establish the ACT Film Makers’ Network and being on the Board of the Australian Choreographic Centre. In 2005 she was awarded a Vincent Fairfax Fellowship for ethical leadership.
It was working in Vietnam that Rebecca discovered KOTO, a street youth café in Hanoi, and the wonderful world of social enterprise. So she finally left the CSIRO to study a Masters in international development and work for KOTO as their Vice-President for a couple of years. After working at KOTO she decided to build a scalable social enterprise model that could be based anywhere on the planet. STREAT is the result and she’s its founding CEO.
Anthony McInneny
Anthony McInneny is the Coordinator of the RMIT University Graduate Certificate in Public Art. He is a practicing artist who works across the field of art in public space and has been commissioned for several temporary and permanent works in public space, most recently the 2010 City of Melbourne Laneway Commissions
Concurrently, Anthony heads a Cultural Services unit in local government delivering a diverse cultural program across the performing and visual arts in a predominantly suburban environment. He has worked as a cultural development worker in Managua, Nicaragua, in the area of cultural restoration after human and natural disaster. He is also a co founding member of Architects for Peace, a not for profit organization. Anthony is an early career research with RMIT Design Research Institute and a PhD candidate in Landscape Architecture based on public art and suburban futures. He is one of three artists/designers who formed the Department of Counter Culture.
Through each of his activities he produces and commissions public artworks in disused and latent public spaces.
Architects for Peace
Architects for Peace is a forum for architects, urban designers, engineers, planners, landscape architects, artists and environmentalists seeking urban development based on social justice, solidarity, respect and peace.
IntentCity was the inaugural forum establishing many of the principles of the organisation. This publication launch will feature contributors to IntentCity and a discussion about social responsibility and the right to the city. Contributors to IntentCity include Dr Darko Radovic, Beatriz Maturana, Dr Kit Lazaroo and Liz Coleman, Marc Purcell, Geoff Hogg, Su Mellersh-Lucas and Mick Pearce
Soumitri Varadarajan
Soumitri Varadarajan has a keen interest in marginal and neglected discourses. This has led him to construct projects dealing with marginalised communities His approach amplifies the social discourse surrounding objects and systems, and provides a location where the faint voices can be heard. His theoretical writings, rather than take issue with the dominant discourse of material constructions, talk about his projects and demonstrate a practice of collective action. Soumitri Varadarajan is Associate Professor in Industrial Design Program at RMIT University, Melbourne (Australia). He also holds the position of Adjunct Professor at Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, PRC) and Research Fellow at the National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad, India).
Soumitri has a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Mysore University (India), and studied Design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad (India). He then went on to do a PhD at Indian Institute of Technology ( Delhi) on the construction of a design theory that included the account of marginal and neglected objects.
