NSW Design Residency

Marlo Lyda

The fellowship program builds upon Marlo's graduation work Scraptopia (2021) from Design Academy, which demonstrates that copper can be reclaimed from electronic waste and transformed into desirable objects in an infinite cycle.

This new body of work will emerge from a uniquely Australian context, tracing the lifecycle of copper from soil to recycling. Drawing on archival documentation and first-hand research into copper mining in Australia, Marlo intends to develop physical outcomes (objects or furniture) that are 'mined' from a sustainable source, like copper recovered from our urban waste streams.

The fellowship will be pivotal in scaling Marlo's existing research (in Scraptopia) to introduce larger objects and a system for their production, including sourcing materials from urban e-waste collection/recycling facilities.

Joel Sherwood-Spring

The program originates from asking, ‘What if an analysis of Architecture and Urbanism began with what and who is disappeared in the process?’

By embracing a decolonial methodology of Indigenous Storywork the study further explores embedded relationality in Indigenous Knowledge systems and how that extends to the material world. This study seeks to locate the lineages and limitations of colonial thought and its materialising affects as an epistemological base by which racial difference is consolidated in this country. Both in the histories of settler colonialism, but also, in contemporary articulations that continue to erase Indigenous cultures and narratives.

Ben Styles

Ben will research and explore radical innovation in the speculative re-design of consumer goods and appliances used to enhance our daily lives.

The vision and the outcome of the fellowship is a public cultural shift away from product overconsumption and wasteful design, and towards a sustainable future where user ownership celebrates the care, upkeep, and active role in the lifecycle of the essential products we require.

He also aims to use the extensive Powerhouse historical archives to conduct anthropological case studies of the design, assembly, and user-experience of three or more pervasive household consumer products. The body of work will be publicly presented in an exhibition of augmented post-consumer goods and in the development and delivery of exploratory workshops where participants will engage directly with research concepts and hand building/crafting.