Kātoitoi, The Aotearoa Design Archive Takes Flight!

Kātoitoi, the Aotearoa Design Archive, curates work that reflects contemporary design practice and the impact of design throughout New Zealand.

Piloted with funding support from Creative New Zealand, the inaugural archive invites submissions from the Aotearoa Design Community, for work completed during 2020.

Key information:

• Submissions open today February 16th and close midnight March 9th.
• From March 10th, an impartial panel of design leaders will consider and evaluate each design based on the projects impact, innovation, craft, and kaupapa.
• The 2020 archive will be revealed, discussed and celebrated on March 31st with online and in-person exhibition and Korerō events held nationally throughout April.
• Our community will respond to the selected work through a series of interviews, critical essays, peer reviews and visual artworks to be published on katoitoi.nz to form a body of research and knowledge around our practice and practitioners today.

The project seeks to examine emerging trends, shifting values, and to build a professional archaeology of our people and practice. More broadly, as we build the archive year by year, Kātoitoi will map the countries economic, cultural and social development through the lens of design.

Like the South Island Robin which the Aotearoa Design Archive is named after, our design community is small but speaks with a large, brave voice that reverberates throughout the world. Kātoitoi, he iti te rahi, he nui te kōrero.

Kātoitoi, the Aotearoa Design Archive, is a response to our world, our collective voice.

Louise Kellerman and Nicole Arnett Phillips co-founded Kātoitoi. The identity, campaign and website were executed through a co-design process with Karl Wixon, Johnson Mckay, Mark Easterbrook, Studio South and New Territory. The Aotearoa Design Archive is a Design Assembly initiative.

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