Sydney Craft Week
Material Intelligence: Poiesis Symvoli
Trent Jansen: Poiesis Symvoli - Poetic Objects Crafted Through Collaboration
ALM is thrilled to present Poiesis Symvoli by Trent Jansen. This exhibition brings together key works from Jansen’s first 20 years of design practice, developed through his distinctive approach, Design Anthropology. Jansen combines research, storytelling, and co-creation in the design and crafting of poetic artefacts that tell stories of cultural values, myths and histories.
This exhibition centres on Jansen’s groundbreaking collaborations with Indigenous Australian artists and designers, including Johnny Nargoodah and Errol Evans. More than collaboration, Jansen builds lasting relationships that extend beyond the final product, ensuring the voices and stories of those he works with continue to shape narratives of Country, culture, and identity. These partnerships have produced objects that honour marginal histories and cultural narratives, telling relational stories that offer a new foundation for Australia identity.
Exhibition: Friday 15 August - Sunday 19 October, 11am - 5pm daily; Closing Event and Floor Talk: Friday 17 October 6 - 8pm.
Why do you think Sydney Craft Week is important/what drives you to be part of the Festival?
Sydney Craft Week is an open and inclusive festival that brings together practitioners and lovers of creativity across the disciplines of art, design and craft. I love the diverse nature of the festival and seeing the various ways practitioners from different disciplines interpret the theme.
How does your event respond to the Festival theme ‘material intelligence’?
My practice is heavily informed by Material Culture Theory, the ways in which the things we design and make embody our values, ideas, attitudes and assumptions - our culture. At Poiesis Symvoli you will see a collection of works that use experimental approaches to material manipulation as a way of embodying cultural values. Many of these projects are collaborative and explore the place where culturally diverse understandings of materials and material manipulation come together in a process of two-way-learning, resulting in innovative material use and manipulation.
What can people expect from your event?
Poiesis Symvoli is an exhibition of key works from the first 20 years of my practice, combining research, storytelling, and co-creation in the designing and crafting of poetic artefacts that tell stories of cultural values, myths and histories. The exhibition centres my collaborations with Indigenous Australian artists and designers Johnny Nargoodah and Errol Evans. These works aim to honour marginal histories and cultural narratives, and tell relational stories that we hope will offer a new foundation for Australian identity.