In Conversation with Simon Maidment of Useful Objects

One can’t help but be immediately taken in by the pieces that pepper the gallery floor and walls at Useful Objects. Coaxed inside by the striking kaleidoscopic uniformity of a lighting piece by Danielle Brustman & Edward Linacre that draws pedestrians’ eyes, visitors are met during the gallery’s inaugural thematic exhibition, Desire x Design, with the brutalist beauty that emanates from a cluster of marble coffee tables by Sydney-based Designer-Maker-Curator Marlo Lyda, opening up a conversation about materiality and its composition that quickly ricochets into Simon recalling a video work, The Column, by Albanian artist Adrian Paci. In the piece, a monumental slab of freshly quarried marble is transformed into a fully resolved, full-scale marble column by a group of Chinese craftsmen while the ship is in transit between China and France. This is the thing about Simon, his knowledge base is extensive and fascinating, pouring a unique constellation of collected and catalogued experiences into valuable intel to be drawn on now for his own gallery.

“I’ve had a very long-standing interest in design and the cusp between it and art,” says Simon at the beginning of his abridged version of how Useful Objects came about. Having worked as a graphic designer, as a design lecturer while studying at art school, and in curatorial teams working on art and design exhibitions, the idea for the gallery really began to take shape during a period working with Creative Director Lou Weis and Broached Commissions. A production house focusing on research and narrative-based work, Broached is renowned for facilitating “collections of design that would respond to and articulate key moments in the development of Australian culture and history”. Simon was recruited to run the consultancy side of the business, working with developers and government on large-scale art and design commissions, as Artistic Director of Broached Consulting. The brand participated in Melbourne Design Fair in 2023, where it made waves by exhibiting no objects but instead instigating a series of interventionist conversations with visitors and other makers and exhibitors. “Almost everyone was saying how great the Fair was but that they had almost no opportunities outside it to show in Melbourne.” In proposing that they all do something about it — draw on the ethos of the 90s art scene by starting a gallery or a co-op for example — Simon was met with interest but a general reticence for anyone to take it on themselves. A similar response was forthcoming from curator colleagues so, in honour of the mantra, if you want to get something done you’ve got to do it yourself, Simon stepped up with the result being Useful Objects.

As a gallery, Useful Objects “addresses a gap in the local creative context. It is a co-op that cultivates deeper opportunities for designer-makers to create and present collectible designs in Australia, providing a base for the public to engage with their practices through the exhibition, promotion and representation of their work.” Ultimately, it is a considered bridge between maker and consumer built at a time when the general appetite and appreciation for collectible design is (finally) gaining momentum.

While the art landscape is still battling with perceived inaccessibility by many, collective design has become a treasure-trove-like space where eminent craftsmanship is displayed and childlike curiosities are piqued. There is something about the relevance of the designer-maker space that feels in accord with the evolving nature of the contemporary home. Especially in Melbourne where we are still a ways behind Europe concerning our acceptance of multi-residential family homes. As more developments are being designed to accommodate family and multigenerational living, their absence of character beyond the expressions of materiality and plays on the architectural form can be difficult to instil from the beginning.

“Perhaps there’s something in the creation of a multi-residential space. Those places come together without any stories. Their history is short. So there is an opportunity to layer in character in a way that perhaps is a little harder to do with an older residence with its own history,” considers Simon. This is where Useful Objects finds its relevance, offering a curation of objects that hold the potential to become the fixed stars of a space that everything else orbits. Objects of visual poetry that uphold the enduring tradition of weaving beauty into our home environments through a dedication to both form and function. Storytelling pieces that spark joy and can be used as navigational tools that draw people in and through space. Pieces that, as Simon puts it are “exceptionally useful, occasionally functional.”

”I am particularly interested in design objects becoming a part of the larger cultural conversation. Objects that act as conversation starters and sit within the home and, more generally, in society and reflect issues of the day,” says Simon. Just as art has long been a metric for the zeitgeist, designer-makers are nudging into a similar relevance with pieces that act as time capsules that hold social, cultural, economic, ecological, innovative and technological impressions. “These are objects invested with all the complexity and sophistication that collectible makers pour into them. They are not mass-produced, they are not ubiquitous and they are made with this real intentionality.” In harmony with this sentiment, these are pieces that are inherently useful as cultural touchpoints.

Six weeks into its establishment, Useful Objects fosters a small but growing stable of designer-makers including Elliot Bastianon, Danielle Brustman & Edward Linacre, Trent Jansen, Marlo Lyda, Joanne Odisho, Marcus Piper and Dean Toepfer. Working across a diverse array of mediums, materials and practices, the stable presents works that engage with the issues of today and contribute to the history of art and design in Australia. For some people, the defining difference between art and design is that design is useful and art isn’t. Useful Objects contests this notion in the most poignantly beautiful of ways, by demonstrating that beauty is in and of itself a function.

A very special thanks to Simon Maidment. Find out more about Useful Objects on their website and Instagram. Interview by Tiffany Jade.