Designer and researcher Matthew Kiem delivers a keynote lecture exploring politics and power in contemporary design.

‘Design’ emerged as a theoretical and pedagogical object not simply in the context of an already established colonial matrix of power but as a means to sustain it. These systemic conditions persist in the liberal pluralisation of design studies, a tendency that undercuts the relevance of design theory with respect to decolonial movements. Drawing on critical studies of the nineteenth-century formation of British design institutions, this talk will argue that a renewed emphasis on understanding the imperial conditions of ‘design’ is necessary to positioning concepts of decolonial theory within design studies.

Matthew Kiem is a Sydney-based designer, researcher, and member of the Decolonising Design group. He has recently completed his PhD at Western Sydney University on the topic of the Coloniality of Design.

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This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition 'Order of Events: Elliott Bryce Foulkes & Maria Smith' at UNSW Galleries 15 March – 1 June 2019.

Multidisciplinary designers Elliott Bryce Foulkes and Maria Smit draw on a collaborative working process to explore the practice of graphic design within the museum — reflecting on the dynamics between exhibited artwork and the ways that graphic design contributes to and creates space.
 

Banner: Elliott Bryce Foulkes and Maria Smit ‘Order of Events’ production still, 2019.