Fresh from the opening of his 'Kurunpa Kunpu' (Strong Spirit) exhibition as part of September’s London Design Festival, furniture designer Dr Trent Jansen hears voices.
The collectible furniture he creates with First Nations artists are ‘storytelling vessels’ that tell of the indigenous response to climate change.
With four works in the National Gallery of Victoria, Trent now appears to be passing on his talent. Today his young daughter is selling gum nuts and Venetian glass fragments on the driveway scrawled with her own chalk artwork.
A dad-designed swing made of rippled leather, crafted with saddler Johnny Nargoodah, swings in a gum tree in the front yard of his Thirroul home. Last year, the family returned from Venice where Trent (43) received the prestigious Venice Design Biennial internship. Trent now lectures in art and design at the University of NSW, describing himself as a ‘design anthropologist'.
As a co-curator of this weekend’s Illawarra Festival of Architecture and Design (IFAD), he will be opening his Thirroul studio to visitors. Set in a secluded cul de sac, the studio is made of salvaged materials, its tin roof studded with solar panels.
Trent is part of Electrify 2515, the groundbreaking project supported by Dr Saul Griffith that recently received funding for a pilot electrification scheme to transform 500 homes in northern Illawarra.
“I don’t feel at peace in cities anymore,” Trent says. “I love working here and we have the most beautiful community. This electrification project reflects all our values.
“Architects are the main creatives in Thirroul and through Electrify 2515 we’re educating locals to make the houses more sustainable.”
Visitors to his studio can admire a sculptural couch, like a leathery Uluru, and see models for two extraordinary cabinets. One is the ‘Magistrato Al Sal Nero,’ a tribute to the black salt that built Venice’s wealth, just as the South Coast was once known as the Coal Coast. Jensen’s backyard is still littered with chunks of it. Then there is the ‘Manta Pilti’; a wooden cabinet towering 2m high, composed of a jigsaw of wooden panels channelling the drought-cracked earth of South Australia’s Indulkana, the country of his collaborator, Minyma Anangu woman Tanya Singer.
“I did Indigenous Studies for the HSC but not woodwork,” Trent says, smiling
He is the kind of designer the world needs right now. As Australia braces for another simmering summer, Trent has developed a course for the UNSW College of Fine Arts (COFA) called ‘Adaptive Design.’ This teaches emergency response design for flood, fire or cyclone.
“My teaching work for UNSW COFA is an important strand of weaving my activist values with my work and response to climate change and it is a way to bring students on country to Thirroul.”
He is hoping to engage local First Nations artists to teach UNSW students.
Trent and his partner, Amy, met working in remote communities in Fitzroy Crossing and Hermannsburg.
“Indigenous elders took us to special sites, storytelling the whole way. They have tales to warn children not to go into the forest.
"And we need to deeply listen.”
For more information about IFAD and to book tickets, visit the website.
About the writer
Philipa Tlaskal is a freelance writer specialising in profiles of fascinating creative people who are making a difference in the world. Having made the tree change, she now lives in Armidale. Philipa's day job is teaching English at an equestrian school and taking riding lessons and walking her whippet.
