Celebrating the MECCA x NGV Women In Design Commission and the recent announcement of the 2024 designer, Christien Meindertsma, enjoy a day of free programming in NGV’s Great Hall, featuring insightful conversations, a drop-by workshop, DJ sets from RONA and refreshments from Allpress Espresso and LUNE Croissants.
Christien Meindertsma is the third recipient of the MECCA x NGV Women in Design Commission, a major ongoing series that invites internationally renowned female designers and architects to create major new and significant work for the NGV Collection. Past recipients include Tatiana Bilbao (2022) and Bethan Laura Wood (2023). The five-year series is enabled by a significant contribution from MECCA through its social change movement, M-POWER, which champions equality and opportunity for women and girls, including elevating women in art and design.
Christien Meindertsma’s research-based design practice delves into the world of materials, such as flax, porcelain and wool. Through her practice, Meindertsma unravels the materials’ stories, their physical properties, applications, and the industrial systems that govern them. Over the past two decades, the visionary designer has predominantly produced objects, textile and furniture works exploring wide-ranging subjects such as animal by-products, household and textile waste, and forestry.
Meindertsma uses design to investigate complex problems, and in her most recent research she has developed a new method for fabricating items using waste and recycled wool that demonstrates its unique properties and potential uses – its softness, strength, warmth, acoustic properties, and biodegradable properties.
For the commission presented at NGV in October 2024, Meindertsma will produce her most ambitious work to date; a large-scale form made from European wool that would be otherwise disposed of. Revolutionising the ways that waste wool can be re-purposed, Meindertsma has developed a world-first robotic technology and technique in collaboration with Netherlands-based company Tools for Technology, making it possible to build structural, three-dimensional objects from wool.
PROGRAM
Visitors are invited to consider the life cycle of materials and opportunities for re-purposing through design as they use reclaimed waste wool and the process of needle felting to create a take-home felted lamb. Workshop is suitable for ages 10+
11.00–11.30am: In-Conversation – The Designers with MECCA founder and Co-CEO Jo Horgan
Jo Horgan sits down with 2024 recipient Christien Meindertsma, joined by prior Women In Design Commission recipients Tatiana Bilbao (2022) and Bethan Laura Wood (2023) joining live via video link, to discuss the role of the Commission and the importance of furthering gender equality within design and architecture. Get to know Meindertsma, and hear again from the previous recipients about their experience and the impact the Commission has had on their practice.
Jo Horgan
Jo Horgan, MECCA Brands Founder and Co-CEO, has completely redefined the Australian beauty landscape, championing retail innovation and delivering the ultimate beauty experience to her customers. In 1997, Horgan opened the first MECCA store in Melbourne. 23 years later, MECCA Brands has over 4,000 employees and over 100 stores in Australia and New Zealand. Horgan is on the board of the National Gallery of Victoria Foundation, the Edward Wilson Trust and is a member of Chief Executive Women. MECCA Brands’ philanthropic foundation, MECCA M-Power, fosters educational programs and mentorships to elevate and empower women and girls. Horgan is also a private philanthropist of the National Gallery of Victoria and has supported the careers of numerous artists over the past six years.
Tatiana Bilbao
World-leading Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao founded Tatiana Bilbao Estudio in Mexico City in 2004, with the aim of conducting architectural design work from a position of social and ecological responsibility. Her work is known for challenging historical conventions, often rearticulating spaces so that they are more people-orientated and inclusive. Regarded as one of Mexico’s most exciting architects working today, Bilbao has worked across institutional, domestic, and low-cost social housing, urban planning and landscape design.
Prior to founding her firm, Bilbao was an advisor in the Ministry of Development and Housing of the Government of the Federal District of Mexico City. Her architectural work was presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2018 and is held in the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Bethan Laura Wood
Bethan Laura Wood’s radical approach to materiality, colour and pattern has garnered a cult following. Fascinated with the cultural and historical significance of surface design and colour in domestic space and the interior, she explores unlikely combinations of colour and shape, developing unique timber veneers, material composites and textiles for furniture, lighting, objects, installations and accessories. Wood has presented work at Design Miami; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and Sketch, London; and has works held in permanent collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Christien Meindertsma
Christien Meindertsma’s research-based design practice delves into the world of materials such as flax, porcelain and wool. In doing so, Meindertsma unravels the materials’ stories, their physical properties, applications, and the industrial systems that govern them. Predominantly producing objects, textile and furniture works, Meindertsma’s practice explores the potential of agricultural waste materials through innovative design.
Meindertsma has won three Dutch Design Awards; and has work held in permanent collections including MOMA (New York), The Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and the Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rein). Meindertsma is passionate about designing a solution to a problem, and in her most recent research she has developed a new technique that demonstrates the unique properties and potential uses of wool – its softness, strength, warmth, acoustic properties, and ability to be recycled or biodegradable.
12.30–1.00pm: In-Conversation – Career Paths in Design
Creative industry leaders discuss career pathways for women within the design industry and share insight into their own experiences. NGV’s Curator of Design and Architecture, Gemma Savio, leads a conversation with NGV’s Head of Exhibition Design Ingrid Rhule and Head of Creative at MECCA Sam Ziino.
Gemma Savio
Gemma Savio is Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria. She is the former editor of Houses magazine and founding editor of Union magazine, which won the Bates Smart Award for architectural media in 2022. She has a breadth of industry perspective that is enriched by her academic research, writing and architectural practice. Gemma has contributed to leading architecture and design titles nationally including Architecture Australia and Artichoke. She was a Juror on the Adrian Ashton Prize for Architectural Culture and Literature in 2020, and has held representative positions with the Australian Institute of Architects. From 2013 – 2018 Gemma ran a successful Sydney-based architecture studio, receiving industry awards in residential architecture for her work.
Ingrid Rhule
Ingrid Rhule is Head of Design at the National Gallery of Victoria, leading the in-house Exhibition Design Studio. For over a decade she has led the design of several major exhibitions, including acclaimed shows Alexander McQueen: Mind Myth Mythos and Escher x Nendo both recognised for their excellence in Interior Design. Her practice engages in how materiality, light, sound, graphics and built form can form a seamless dialogue between art and visitor experience.
Ingrid has an extensive background in Interior and Exhibition Design. As Exhibition Designer at Museum Victoria, Ingrid led the design of the award-winning exhibition Wild, a design that was maintained and on display for over 11 years. She has previously tutored within the RMIT Interior Design school and maintains engagement with students and industry through participation in panels and student critiques.
Sam Ziino
Sam Ziino is Head of Creative at MECCA. She has extensive experience within various fields of design, including branding and identity, campaigns, digital, experiential, and spatial.
At MECCA, Sam has established the creative team as industry-leading, with continued growth of the MECCA brand and customer love – through successful campaigns, activations and store-experiences. Prior to MECCA, she created culturally relevant work for brands and institutions, as Design Director at Studio Round, Designer at Studio Ongarato, and as a design resident at FABRICA – Benetton’s creative laboratory in Treviso, Italy.
1.30–1.45pm: Curator Talk – Bethan Laura Wood
Join NGV Curator Gemma Savio to learn about the 2023 MECCA x NGV Women In Design Commission from Bethan Laura Wood, Kaleidoscope-o-rama, part of NGV Triennial 2023.
Level 2, NGV International
2.00–2.30pm: In-Conversation with Christien Meindertsma
Join 2024 Women In Design Commission recipient Christien Meindertsma and NGV Curator of Design and Architecture Simone LeAmon, as they discuss Meindertsma’s practice, how speculative design can be used to interrogate global concerns and processes and share a sneak peak of what is to come with the 2024 commission.
Simone LeAmon
Simone LeAmon is the inaugural Hugh D.T Williamson Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (NGV). A curator, designer, artist, and educator for near to three decades, she is Adjunct Professor in the School of Design and Social Context, RMIT University and is the recipient of the 2021 Good Designs Australia, Women in Design Award, for her life-long passion and unwavering dedication to the design profession in Australia. Championing the importance of design and creativity, and the work of our creative communities, LeAmon’s field of influence extends beyond our shores. Her accumulated activities have brought her global recognition and significantly, fostered vital understanding of the contemporary design scene in Australia in view of a broad national and international audience. In 2022 and 2023, she led the curatorial program for the Melbourne Design Fair presented by NGV in partnership with the Melbourne Art Foundation.
In 2007, LeAmon was identified in the top 100 product designers in the world in the book &Fork: 100 Designers, 10 Curators, 10 Good Designs (Phaidon press 2007) and in The Bulletin Magazine’s Smart 100: Australia’s Best and Brightest.
Since 2015, LeAmon has worked on an extensive program of exhibitions and events at NGV including the annual Melbourne Design Week (2017-23) and Melbourne Design Fair (2022-23). Exhibitions include: NGV Triennial (curatorium) (2017, 2020 & 2023); Melbourne Now (2013 & 2023); MECCA X NGV Women in Design Commission (2022 & 2023); History in the Making (2022); Rigg Design Prize (2015, 2018, 2022); Lucy McRae: Body Architect (2019); Black Bamboo: Contemporary Bamboo Furniture Design From Mer (2019); and Designing Women (2018).
Christien Meindertsma
Christien Meindertsma is a speculative designer whose research-based practice explores the processes of industrialisation and mass manufacturing to draw attention to transparency in product supply chains. Predominantly producing objects, furniture and installations using natural materials such as flax and wool, Meindertsma’s practice explores the potential of agricultural waste materials through innovative design.
Meindertsma has won three Dutch Design Awards; and has work held in permanent collections including MOMA (New York), The Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and the Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rein). Meindertsma is passionate about designing a solution to a problem, and in her most recent research is looking at a new technique that celebrates the unique properties of wool – its softness, strength, warmth, acoustic properties and air permeability.
PRESENTING PARTNER
