Semi Permanent 2017

Overview

How does Murray Bell have a moment to even look at design? For the past 15 years, he's been the head of Semi Permanent, the global design platform that he founded in 2002, curating live design events all over the country. The next of these events to hit Sydney was been announced today, and is the celebration of 15 big years of Semi Permanent. As if last year's lineup wasn't noteworthy enough, Bell has moved things into a different kind of topical territory this year, embracing the official theme 'Design for Change'.

Semi Permanent's 2017 event will take over Carriageworks from Thursday, May 25 to Saturday, May 27 and features a cast of players so influential in the modern design game that while this event's in motion, the world will become a very desolate and tacky place. The headlining speaker is Oliver Stone, the Academy Award winning director behind such influential films as Scarface, Midnight Express, Platoon, Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, JFK, Nixon, and The Doors. Other speakers include Museum of Contemporary Art Australia director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Katherine Keating publisher VICE Impact, Nike design director Meirion Pritchard and Nike EMEA brand director Gary Horton, Jacqueline Bourke from Getty Images, animation studio Moth Collective, Design Studio's Paul Stafford, Frog Design and Australian designers David Caon, Henry Wilson and architect Kelvin Ho.

The program also includes the Future State panels, a series of talks about the how the design world, and the world as a whole, is growing and changing. The themes for the panels will cover Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, immersive storytelling, and redesigning cities. Appearing on these panels will be representatives of Google, Netflix, Pixar, and Amazon. Plus, Google and Semi Permanent are launching an immersive experience with Tilt Brush in collaboration with contemporary artists.

Murray Bell and Semi Permanent are not only collectors and sharers of good design, they aim to be influencers who enable the design community to improve and grow. The idea behind the project is to create a global platform of creating, networking, and sharing, and to bring top-notch original content to readers of their site.

Semi Permanent's 15th birthday is part the Vivid Sydney program.

Semi Permanent runs May 25-27 at Carriageworks. General one-day tickets are $340, two-day $544 and three-day $765. Premium one-day tickets are $540, two-day $864 and three-day $1215. Student tickets available too. Check semipermanent.com for more details.

Images: Semi Permanent.