Melbourne Design Week (MDW) is an annual 11-day program of talks, tours, exhibitions and workshops that celebrate and interrogate design through its varied disciplines, including: communication design, industrial design, service design, gaming, architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, fashion, craft and functional art. MDW is an opportunity for a broad array of actors from these disciplines and beyond — including designers, educators, thinkers and businesses — to come together to share ideas, show new work and consider how design can be used as a force for good in an increasingly complex and precarious world.

2021 MDW

In 2021, MDW participants responded to the statement ‘Design the world you want’ where designers demonstrated how they could collaborate to create a better and healthier future for the planet.

2022 MDW

Following the success of the 2021 program the 2022 program continues with this call-to-action ‘Design the world you want’.

The program is curated into two streams; core programming of local and international exhibitions and keynote presentations hosted by NGV, and the satellite program which is made up of events and exhibitions independently organised and hosted by the design community. The satellite program makes up 90 per cent of the MDW program with events held at ateliers, studios, retail spaces, universities, galleries and public spaces throughout Melbourne and regional Victoria. Prospective participants develop submissions in response to a curatorial theme set by MDW. Curation of the program is led by the NGV Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture team; Ewan McEoin, Simone LeAmon and Myf Doughty alongside Timothy Moore, Director of Sibling Architecture.