Post Forma

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: The ‘Post Forma’ project was a 3-day workshop and an exhibition with internationally renowned furniture designer Martino Gamper. Curated by Fleur Watson, it was a separate project that ran alongside ‘100 Chairs in 100 Days:’ an exhibition of found and reconfigured chairs by Gamper (also curated by Watson with Studio Gamper). RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: The workshop format was an opportunity to engage the Melbourne design community with Martino’s thinking and research. It instigated collaborative making, ‘ideas exchange’ and experimentation at the Design Hub: a critical site of performative exchange between practitioners, designers, artists and the public. Outcomes from the workshop formed additional content for the exhibition: an installation of ideas, mock-ups and prototypes that presented new possibilities for objects as a driver for social reflection and cross-cultural exchange. Watson views the curatorial program as a ‘social medium that is not just about the presentation of research, but about its contextualisation and mediation’ (Rhodes and Watson, Cusp-Design, October 2014). This project extends Watson’s process-driven practice of ‘conversational design curatorship.’ It also demonstrates Watson's ongoing investigation into new ways of presenting and mediating architectural and design practices within the local context. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: ‘Post Forma’ took place at the peer-reviewed venue Design Hub: a progressive educational environment that houses a community of architects, designers, curators and students for collaborative, inter-disciplinary design research and education. The project brought together a community of local designers with an international designer, and at the same time, engaged the public in the discourse and practice of design.