Leipzig designer/photographer, Jo Zarth, kindly spent a day showing me around Leipzig, in particular, Plagwitz—the creative quarter of the city. He also gave me his spare bike.

A liking for chinoiserie shows up in much of his installation work — apart from King Size, the recent exhibition Small Business Reconstructed and collaborative work combining food, design, art and photography with Thomas Wrobel as Chinabrenner.

Happy Talk House opens Friday 23 September in Sydney’s Sandringham Gardens, Hyde Park North (diagonally opposite the Australian Museum). Happy Talk will have workshops and talks on Pacific Island culture as part of Art & About 2011.

Happy Talk = Heidi Dokulil, Liane Rossler, Beatrice Chew.
Broadsheet: Beatrice Chew and Heidi Dokulil.
Architect: Mano Ponnambalam.

Please visit the Happy Talk site for information and program.

Lots to think about a brilliant practice working on the edge of architecture and using public space as a laboratory to discover possibilities.

Love their building and its location on a canal off the River Spree. Also the method of entry. If the orange door was locked the instructions were to phone. So I did, and someone appeared at the top floor window saying, ‘I’m going to throw you a rabbit’. The fluffy bunny had the key in its butt.

To be revisited soon.

For about a month. The idea (or aim at least) is to meet some interesting creative people —mainly in their places of work—and write about them in more depth than this blog can handle—and also learn about/from another city. Publishing will ideally be on paper.

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An initiative to open up conversations between the creative industry and the wider community in Australia and across the Pacific.
Web site coming soon. Please bookmark the Happy Talk page.

This catalogue was designed for the New South Wales Architecture Awards which were announced a few days ago. Inevitably — with these simpler, quieter works —someone will ask where the design is… and I don’t know how to answer in a succinct way.
I could tell them about the way a sentence is set, and how it wraps around the curve of the paper or how I want someone to look while holding it in their hands or how a particular font brings back memories of elegant typewritten forms. But I don’t.
The type is Freight Text and Sans. Art director: Graeme Smith. Editor: Peter Salhani.

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Lots to think about this beautiful wall on a not-so-beautiful road in Sydney—but it’s Friday night and I can’t think. More think later.

Still pushing: bikes, peonies…

Publication designed by Graeme Smith and Beatrice Chew.

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It’s realistic— and not even remotely cynical—to say that the general view put across by the design and mainstream media, on a future shaped by design, is limited. It’s often more about colour prediction or leading the way with the next thing in European lampshade irony, than fixing the problems of the planet. Western Europe, particularly Italy, France, Germany and the UK get strong coverage, as does North America.

The upcoming program, Unlimited: Designing for the Asia Pacific, provides hope for a refreshing about-face. Food futures, smart cities, transport systems, new technologies for solving complex problems, health and education will be some of the things covered in talks, exhibitions and workshops in Brisbane, 4–10 October. And it’s regional.

Website design and art direction: Graeme Smith, Beatrice Chew. Content management and editing: Heidi Dokulil, Peter Salhani. Web development and interactive design: Portable. Identity design: R-Co. Client: Queensland government. Other people are credited on the Unlimited website.

Please keep an eye on the Unlimited site to see the program as it develops. You can also subscribe to receive updates.
unlimitedap.com

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