Archive for July, 2009

The Sydney Design 09 festival starts this Saturday, 1 August. Kollektor has already given you a heads-up about five great ticketed events, the talk on the Bruno Benini archive and the tour of treasures from the Caroline Simpson Library. Here are three more events to consider: a collection of cool talks. Pecha Kucha – the Japanese... »

New work by Michael Parekowhai being exhibited at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery shows that he has dived into the childhood toybox once again and come out to play. »

“Seeing this collection is a challenge to your ideas about colour and pattern in the past,” says Megan Martin, Head of the Historic Houses Trust’s Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection. Indeed, flipping open a copy of Ackerman’s Repository of Art, a journal published in London from 1809 to 1828, reveals samples of vivid orange... »

I’ve been seeing Status Anxiety wallets around for a while but only recently found out that it’s an Australian brand started by a couple of guys in Cronulla. Props to them! »

Magda Sayeg, the founder of KnittaPlease, was in Sydney on Monday 13 July. Kollektor was invited to join her guerilla knitting posse for the day. Here’s a gallery of images from the event, taken in the centre of Sydney’s business district, around the Opera House and at Bondi beach. About KnittaPlease Paint and... »

Bruno Benini was a pioneering Australian fashion photographer, bringing a European elegance to the field from the post-war period right through until his death in 2001. Together with his wife, Hazel, who played an important role in styling the photos, the Beninis were central, glamorous figures in Melbourne’s cultural scene for 50 years, documenting... »

Calling this series “landscapes” is too gentle to encompass what they depict. Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of Western Australian mines are woundscapes, evidence of the lasting and often devastating impact our demand for raw materials has on the land. »

This three-panel screen by young Brisbane designer Surya Graf is a great way to divide up a space without it being a folding wall. Its open form is based on plant forms and the structure of DNA. The panels are CNC machined from marine-grade plywood and finished in clear or black varnish, with custom colours... »

Some key pieces from the current Saint Augustine Academy AW09 collection, designed by Sydney-based Alvin Manalo. The collection is called Corpus Christi Carol, inspired by the Jeff Buckley version of a medieval hymn, and the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, which has a thriving motorcycle culture. The result is the mixing of religious and biker motifs... »

Geek girls are hot because there’s nothing sexier than brains. For every geek girl who spent her formative years buckling down with school books before blossoming into a smart woman comes Kelly Thompson’s new suite of drawings. They’re being exhibited from tomorrow night at Melbourne’s Gorker Gallery under the title Bookworms Never Go to Bed... »