Connections—Touchpoints in a World of Design

The global COVID-19 pandemic with its culture of lockdowns and isolation has impacted most aspects of our lives and, in particular, how we connect with one another professionally and personally and keep the fire of creativity rolling. Join New York design consultant and creative director, Visnja Brdar; Melbourne author and historian, Denise Whitehouse; and curator-designer Ian Wong (Monash Senior Lecturer in Design) to explore the different ways in which the connections we make across time and countries sustain and nurture design practice. While the pandemic reconnected Visnja and Denise and reignited their creative relationship—encompassing Visnja’s journey from winning the Victorian Design Award in 1998 to Europe and New York, where she established her design consultancy BRDAR—it has also renewed opportunities for connecting with Australian design practice.

Visnja Brdar was born in Geelong and launched her own Creative Studio in Melbourne at the age of twenty-one. Her clients have included the Sydney Opera House, Marc Newson, Jenny Bannister, Neometro, Jill Dupleix and Chris Connell. Visnja’s desire to work with global luxury brands led her to New York, where she worked with Fabien Baron as Art Director for Michael Kors, Jil Sander, Giorgio Armani and Nars Cosmetics among others, and where she established her creative agency BRDAR in 2003. BRDAR’s clientele from the fields of lifestyle, architecture, fashion, beauty, art and real estate, have included Estee Lauder, New York’s top developer Zeckendorf and luxury start-ups. BRDAR articulates highly sophisticated communications across every platform—from brand identity, to strategy, collateral, digital and creative direction. Incisive storytelling, clarity, elegance and unwavering exactitude permeate their work.

Dr Denise Whitehouse is a distinguished design historian, academic, educator and writer who has been working for several decades to promote research and publication of Australian design history. Denise has an in-depth understanding of the history of twentieth-century design in Australia, supported by a rich knowledge of the artistic and socio-political history of the time. Convenor of DHARN, the Design History Australia Research Network, she has an extensive record of design-focused research, scholarship and related outcomes, including exhibitions, significant publications, design advocacy and public lectures. Denise co-curated the exhibition Design for Life: Grant and Mary Featherston at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, in 2019 and authored the accompanying book. She is currently the John Truscott Foundation Research Fellow, tasked with situating John Truscott’s work and legacy within a thoughtful analysis of social, political and cultural contexts.

Ian Wong is an industrial designer with over twenty-five years of professional practice experience, and director of EJO, a small multidiscipline design studio. His research interest is Australian design and he is an expert in the history of industrial design in Victoria. Ian is Program Director for the Master of Industrial Design at the Southeast University–Monash University Joint Graduate School (Suzhou) and Director of the Monash Art, Design and Architecture Industrial Design Centre (Kunshan). Ian is the author of the blog Industrial Design in Victoria and Director of the Ian Wong Collection. He has curated international and national design exhibitions and events including Everyday Australian Design: Functional Design from the Ian Wong Collection, Shepparton Art Museum (2022); 100 Objects | Australian Design in the Home, Robin Boyd Foundation (2019); I-CONIC Australian Design, SASA Gallery, University of South Australia (2019); and Innovators: Australian Design and Innovation, Beijing Design Week (2017). Ian is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia and President of Melbourne Movement.

This event is part of Melbourne Design Week 2022, an initiative of the Victorian Government in collaboration with the NGV.