It’s a celebration of modern craftsmanship in Melbourne: the Ketel One Commission opens at the PinUp gallery in Collingwood. Alice Blackwood brings news from the opening night.
May 26th, 2011
It’s an exhibition that uses the entire floor – and air space – available.
Bisected by tables tilted at drastic angles, the space is alive with myriad ideas and stories, each revealing the creative process of 16 Melbourne practitioners.

Those 16 involved in the Ketel One Commission project and exhibition have used table, floor and ceiling to communicate their practice, while also expressing their views on the importance of craftsmanship in modern times – and to add even further to this, exemplifying the dedicated craftsmanship behind Ketel One vodka.
It’s been an ambitious project for all involved, requiring reflection and thought at the fore, and ingenuity and creative skill in the translation of this into a visual submission.

The resulting work – put forward by each practitioner and now on show as part of the exhibition – was judged by a panel of experts with one winning submission, and two highly commended.
Tim Fleming took out the top prize, which will see him attend the Dutch Design Week and visit the Nolet Distillery in Schiedam later this year.

Tim Fleming
Tim’s submission, entitled 2114 Cult of Stealth, is a fictional museum display of ceremonial objects used to worship the stealth bomber by the ’Cult of Stealth’… after ’The Fall’.
The concept behind this is based on the “cataclysmic events of 2082” which sends the world into technological darkness.
100 years on, we (the viewer) can study some of the “perverse coping mechanisms that humans created to add meaning to their lives once previous systems of belief had collapsed”.

Ewan McEoin and Tim Fleming
It’s been both a demanding and rewarding experience for all those involved; some creatives are enjoying the added exposure the project has brought them, while others have found the reflective process both enlightening and useful in the formation of new ideas and future projects.
For Highly Commended recipients, Justin Hutchinson and Jessie Fairweather, they’re revelling in the knowledge that their awards were created during the judging process, to acknowledge the outstanding quality of their work.
Ketel One Commission is showing at Melbourne’s Pin Up from Wednesday 25 May to Sunday 29 May.
INDESIGN is on instagram
Follow @indesignlive
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
In the last instalment of our three-part performance seating series, Alex Bain from Architectus explains why sitting well shouldn’t feel like sitting at all and explores an unexpected success metric of the hybrid workplace: the grounding power of emotional support.
The Geelong College’s Sport and Wellbeing Centre ‘Belerren’ designed by Wardle is designed around bringing in natural light. But Shade Factor’s job was to help modulate and precisely control it for the most important competitive moments.
Blending versatile cooking with smart performance, Bosch AccentLine appliances bring a quieter sense of order and simplicity to the modern kitchen.
Stepping into Intuit’s Sydney workplace certainly doesn’t feel like walking into an office. Why? In this film, we discover that, when joy takes precedence as a design driver, even a high-performing commercial CBD headquarters can feel like an intuitive wonderland that invites employees to choose their own adventure.
North America’s premier annual lighting industry event for Architectural and commercial lighting products and services, LIGHTFAIR International, is expected to attract over 20,000 design, lighting, architectural, engineering and industry professionals from all around the world.
These early product standouts — from sculptural forms to reflective surfaces — capture just a sliver of what Milan Design Week 2025 has begun to unveil.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
Melbourne-based architect and object maker Adam Markowitz blurs the line between design and craft, bringing a deeply considered, material-led approach to his work. As both a practising architect and furniture designer, Markowitz explores how objects can respond to space, light and human use.