After Hours presented by Volker Haug Studio for Melbourne Design Week 2022.

Reflection on the Garden by Kennedy Nolan with Amanda Oliver.

Two Faces In The Dark by Michael Gittings.

Pascale Gomes-McNabb And Anna Varendorf for ACV.

Flying Ducks Light by Khai Liew .

Housed at Volker Haug Studio in East Brunswick, After Hours was the second edition of an exhibition presenting side projects by local creatives—the work they do when they’re not at work.

Held in conjunction with Melbourne Design Week 2022, this sharp show showcased creations by a select group of artists and designers, exploring the artistic projects and passions which live beyond their main practices.

The exhibition featured the works of local designers Edition Office in collaboration with Alexi Freeman; Kennedy Nolan in collaboration with Amanda Oliver; Khai Liew; Michael Gittings; Anna Varendorff for ACV; Pascale Gomes-McNabb; Morgan Hickinbotham / LAAP and H.B. Peace, capturing the personable community spirit of interdisciplinary design in Melbourne.

Related: Highlights from Melbourne Design Week 2022.

An exercise in reduction, EOAF_001 by Edition Office in collaboration with Alexi Freeman is a stool that celebrates robust raw steel materiality with future directions in fabric production. This edition sees a pairing of a modular, demountable, and reconfigurable steel frame system, finished with an ethically grown bio-cellulose material—developed by Alexi Freeman—to form a refined and novel upholstery surface.

Idyll made by Kennedy Nolan with long-time collaborator, garden designer Amanda Oliver is presented as a conversation—the impetus for so many collaborations—cited as a valued part of the Kennedy Nolan studio culture. The artists state: “What we have come to understand is that this conversation engages us with the wider world and frees us from the introspection of Architecture. We talk about movies and fashion and sport and places. We talk about art and politics and food and climate change. And we talk about gardening. Essentially, we talk about what we do ‘After Hours’, and what we learn from each other helps us to make buildings and interiors which are more authentic and better connected to the vibrant and diverse world around us.” From these conversations has arisen the shared fact the team has spent so much more time at home over the last two years, and that the pleasure of gardens has been amplified. Their work is a reflection on The Garden—representing private pursuits and the fragility and wonder of nature—and on the hearth— representing home as well as architecture in general.

Flying Ducks light (2021) is designed by Khai Liew in American black walnut with copper (dimensions 1020mm high, 3200mm long, 80mm deep) is the poster child for exceptional craftsmanship and artistry. So often inspired by Australian historical imagery and narrative, Liew’s light is a take on the ubiquitous and kitsch wall-mounted ceramic ducks that inhabited suburban homes from the 1950s onwards.

In the pair of stainless steel seats by Anna Varendorff for ACV, dubbed Love Chairs, each enjoys the inverse of the other, offering up heart-shaped seats of curled metal with a counter-intuitive, but entirely joyous, bounce.

Michael Gittings’ Two Faces In The Dark are the result of material exploration and chance locations. Gittings’ studio is situated between an outlaw motorcycle clubhouse and an upholstery supplies store, which has catalysed a number of inspirations. He cites walking through the racking of the upholstery supplies store, interacting with fabrics and foams, and learning about paints and glues as hugely informative for his practice. In the spirit of “catharsis”, Gittings used foam as a canvas for linear doodling (an exciting way to scale up small drawings he’d done on the back of tickets and dockets in times of boredom and inert despair). While Gittings has yet to engage in formal collaboration with the motorcycle gang, he acknowledges that the nearby sound of motorcycle engines have immeasurable therapeutic and creative benefits. The two Faces In The Dark wall piece is made from aluminium and paint, and the sofa is stainless steel foam and latex.

A Wishing Wall of Sorts, designed by Pascale Gomes-McNabb, was inspired by her interpretation of After Hours to connotate another dimension, space and time—the one in which life happens after work life (in your non-work “real life”). The prompt evoked to her the reality of day-to-day existence, and the dreamlike state often encountered at the beginning and end of the day. The artist shares that over the last few years, her two worlds of work and after-hours merged. Frequently, her close community would be in discussions about what appeared to be “everything”, however on analysis, reflections were really about wishing—wishing for the future, good wishes for others, selfish wishes, global wishes, secret wishes, all sorts of wishes. The Wishing Wall of Sorts prompts the MDW22 community to reflect and to transcribe their wishes, secrets or otherwise.

Residency I/II, presented by Morgan Hickinbotham, is a documentation of two residencies LAAP undertook in 2018-2019 in Fujiyoshida, Japan and in Iceland. The piece is a compilation of 8mm film footage, field recordings and sound composed onsite.

H.B. Peace presents Chair Covers, a series of covers for second-hand dining chairs, which have been made from an assortment of “rag out” day dresses. These removable covers offer second-hand freedom for the chairs. The material construction includes an assortment of cotton, silk, and viscose from these “end of life” day dresses and their linings.

Related: After Hours at Volker Haug Studio during Melbourne Design Week 2021.

Residency I/II by Morgan Hickinbotham.

Chair Covers by H.B. Peace.

[Images courtesy of Volker Haug Studio. Photography by Pier Carthew.]