2025 Alastair Swayn Legacy Exhibition Creative Director Announced

Dr Watson is an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University.

The inaugural Swayn Legacy Exhibition was launched in 2023, and celebrated Alastair Swayn by interpreting and extending his commitment to light, colour, and humanity in design.

“The Swayn is delighted with the appointment of Dr Fleur Watson as the second Legacy Exhibition Creative Director. Her wealth of experience and knowledge in curation, creative production, and cultural leadership will assure a thought provoking and forward-thinking design exhibition”, said Annabelle Pegrum AM, Chair of The Swayn Gallery of Australian Design.

Selected from an exceptional field of applicants, Dr Watson’s breadth of knowledge across the creative and design disciplines is recognised both internationally and nationally as an exemplar of progressive curatorial practice.

Dr Watson aims to highlight the vital role of designers in revealing our relationship to complex planetary ecologies through two opposing time scales – ‘deep time’ (distant past), and ‘real-time’ (immediate present). “The development of this exhibition presents a compelling opportunity to reveal the agency of time-based thinking and foreground a research-led approach to design and creative practice. The exhibition will be co-curated and designed by Naarm-based practice Simulaa and centres around a large-scale installation along with key creative works by invited architects, designers and artists through the lens of ecology, energy, and technology”, explains Dr Watson.

The Alastair Swayn Legacy Exhibition is scheduled for early 2025, in Melbourne/Naarm, Australia.

The exhibition is presented by The Swayn Gallery of Australian Design, proudly funded by the Alastair Swayn Foundation, and is supported by RMIT Culture, and RMIT Architecture and Urban Design.

Further details about the exhibition will be released throughout 2024.

Image provided: Fleur Watson. Photography: Peter Bennetts.