The Mall Forum: Sunday

Leading Australian and international creatives Studio Ongarato, Vert and Space Popular join the Guardian’s deputy culture editor Sian Cain to discuss the making of The Mall. This talk will unpack the role of design as cultural production, sales mechanism and object of consumption.

Industry leaders Micheal Kemeny (KNAPP) and Andrew Steele (GS1) explain the end-to-end journey of products – from fulfilment warehouses to checkouts – and the logistics systems that make it all work.

Brought together by Moroccan-British artist Hassan Hajjaj at a Fairfield barbershop for his portrait series, Western Sydney filmmaker Miski Omar, Turbans 4 Australia’s Amar Singh and musician Sollyy each hold community at the heart of their creative practice. In conversation, they recount the malls, shopping centres and public spaces that have shaped relationships and shared experiences in their own lives.

The Mall creative collaborators – artist Gillian Kayrooz, photographer Jo Duck and writers Sarah Krasnostein and Felicity Castagna – share stories and experiences shaped by malls, arcades and shopping centres across Western Sydney and beyond, from the universal to the deeply individual.

From Liverpool to Manly, suburban shopping arcades remain part of everyday life, with hundreds operating across Greater Sydney. This talk between Dr CC Williams and documentary photographer Bahram Mia examines the expanded use of suburban arcades and new solutions and ideas for repurposing and renewal, drawing on Dr CC Williams’ research for ‘The Arcades Project’ and Mia’s contribution to Powerhouse portrait commission: My Mall.

David Gianotten, Managing Partner – Architect, OMA, and leading designers Carolyn Jackson (Aje, Aesop) and Josh Cain (Pattern Studio) discuss the future of visual merchandising and working with fashion houses and brands.

As the cornerstone of many postwar urban development strategies and utopian visions for the ideal city, shopping malls played a critical role in the expansion of our suburbs. In this talk, cultural commentator Darran Anderson and architecture collective Grandeza Studio will critique real and unrealised city planning models from across the world alongside local examples.

Moderated by Michael Chapman, Chair and Professor of Architecture and Design at Western Sydney University.