Friends & Associates

Friends & Associates focuses on camaraderie in the Australian contemporary design discipline.

Each participant in the exhibition was given a replica of Jasper Morrison’s HAL Wood Chair. The original HAL Wood Chair was designed in 2010/2011, and is manufactured by Vitra in Switzerland. Participants were ordered to reconfigure an existing replica design as a way to deconstruct how the design object is valued. Questioning how replica furniture draws focus to issues of authenticity, creative practice and the commercial market, the first realisation of Friends & Associates takes the theme ‘Design Values’ to consider how the design community can hack and reevaluate the replica.

With an interest in the possibilities of new knowledge, new design methods and approaches through collaboration, Friends & Associates looks to solidarity as the cornerstone in contemporary production.