Join us for an Ockham Lecture by Matthew Galloway presented in conjunction with In the image of the city, and the official launch of The National Grid #10.

Galloway’s lecture, The World is a Designed Landscape, will use a number of interlinking lines of inquiry to examine the concept of the world as a designed landscape – the idea that nearly every site, system and surface we interact with has been designed; is human-made, is manufactured. He says:

Taking this a step further, if we understand design as a thought practice before anything else (a process of conceptualising, prefiguring) then the world can be understood as millions of moments of thought made manifest. 

What thoughts, world views, and ways of seeing dominate the designed landscape around us? And what does it mean to interrogate the world through this lens?

Following the lecture, we’ll hear briefly from the team behind The National Grid before heading downstairs for a toast to celebrate the launch of their tenth issue.

The National Grid #10 returns with conspiracy theories, activism, hostile architecture, Māori printing presses and Tongan design practices.

Graphic design is everywhere, but its influence is often invisible. The National Grid #10 looks again at the world we already inhabit, uncovering fascinating histories and surprising revelations about how cultural meaning is created and reproduced. The new issue presents nine contributions, including:

· The story of New Zealand’s first centralised electronic database, the “Wanganui Police Computer,” and the activist who tried to bomb it.

· A Māori printing press and its use in the Kīngitanga movement and early Māori media.

· The erosion of community in Auckland’s half-finished subdivisions and commercial wastelands.

· The search for a body of Tongan design.

Contributors include Tamsen Hopkinson, Jane Wallace, Matthew Galloway, Kim Paton, Catherine Griffiths, Fiona Jack, Shaun Naufahu, Ann Shelton, Layla Tweedie-Cullen and David Bennewith.

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Based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Matthew Galloway’s work is interdisciplinary, employing a spatial practice across design and art, and operating within and beyond the confines of the gallery. Past works include sculpture, installation, film, wall drawings, image and text, artist books and publishing. Galloway considers the act of making design and art to be an inherently political exercise: he sees his work as using the methodologies and tools of design to engage directly with real issues faced in contemporary culture.

Based in Aotearoa, The National Grid is a periodical dedicated to research in the field of graphic design. It takes an expansive view on graphic design as it intersects with culture, society, politics and histories. As a practice concerned with the reproduction and distribution of language, graphic design—The National Grid suggests—is significantly more interesting, and more impactful, than purely market-led or ‘value added’ narratives tend to imply. Not quite ‘magazine’ and not quite ‘academic journal’, The National Grid attempts to chart a path through the murky wasteland between professional practice and academia, art and design.

The National Grid is edited by Luke Wood, Katie Kerr and Matthew Galloway. Luke Wood (Ōtautahi Christchurch) is a senior lecturer in graphic design at the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts. Katie Kerr (Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland) is a graphic designer and publisher whose practice revolves around books. Matthew Galloway (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington Wellington) is an artist and designer whose interdisciplinary work often uses the methodologies and tools of design within a contemporary art context.

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The Ockham Lecture series is an annual programme of lectures and panel discussions across different themes that critically engage with craft, design and architecture. This programme is supported by Objectspace's Lead Partner Ockham Residential.