Semi Permanent Sydney 2023 — Festival of Creativity & Design

Semi Permanent Festival of Creativity & Design returned to Carriageworks as part of Vivid Sydney 2023, from 31st May through 2nd June 2023. In its 21st year, Semi Permanent brought together the creative industries from across Asia Pacific for three full days of inspiring keynote talks, panel discussions, workshops, exhibitions, demonstrations, installations, and more.

The breadth of the program was reflective of creative practice in 2023, including graphic, product, spatial and motion design, filmmaking, photography, illustration, publishing, writing, advertising, animation, Web3, and visual data. Many of the talks and programs delved into important and timely cultural subject matter, including futurism, feminism, First Nations culture, accessibility, sustainability, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Speakers include disability design advocate Sinead Burke (Dublin), creative director Bijan Berahimi of Fisk Studio (Portland), artist and designer Evi O. (Sydney), Vogue India’s head of editorial content Megha Kapoor (Mumbai), Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist Mona Chalabi (New York), and speculative architect and filmmaker Liam Young (Los Angeles).

The Semi Permanent Art & Design Fair, powered by Squarespace, comprised over 30 vendors from across Australia and New Zealand, including Art Ink, Astrophe, BTWNLNS, Formist, Institute of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Journals, Perimeter Books, Powerhouse Publishing, Tart Magazine, and Vault.

The festival’s partners included Destination New South Wales, Genesis Motors, Future Super, Squarespace, Western Sydney University, July Luggage, SAE Creative Institute, and Heaps Normal.

In my role as Executive Creative Director, I oversaw all aspects of the event, from curation and programming, through to marketing, ticketing and production.

MITCHELL OAKLEY SMITH