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CAST, RMIT University Vietnam & RMIT Gallery, VICAS and Vietnam Design Week present

designer

Tom Trandt Minh ĐạoMoi Dien

Tom Trandt is a fashion designer, born and raised in Vietnam. He graduated from Parsons the New School for Design, New York in 2016, obtaining a degree in BFA in Fashion Design. He opened his studio - Moi Dien - in 2016 in Saigon, Vietnam where he has a focus on using sustainable materials to design into ungendered garments.

W: Môi Điên
I: @tomtrandt
I: @moidienstudio

Project: Quấn
Mentor/s: James Bartle (Outland Denim) Thao Vu (Kilomet109)

designer

Pham Hoang LinhLinht handicraft

A person sitting on grass with mountains and blue sky in the background. The're sitting in front of some yellow dyed fabric that is hanging to dry. The person is smiling, has long, dark, currly hair and is wearing a long sleeved light yellow top, jeans and some black and white sneakers.

I was born on May 15, 1987, in Quang Nam province, Vietnam. In 2013, I graduated from art department Hue University of Arts, and then move to Sapa in 2014 to build my business, and live there until now. I founded Linht handicraft, a brand of clothes made from natural, naturally dyed fabrics of ethnic minorities in northern Vietnam.

Project: Linht Handicraft
Mentor/s: Dewi Cooke (The Social Studio)

designer

Luu Nhu NgocVan Lang University

A black and white photo of a female that has straight black hair cut into a bob with a fringe, they have dark eyes and lips. They are weating a bulky shirt and looking pensively at the camera with their head in their hands.

My name is Luu Nhu Ngoc, I’m a 4th year student at the Van Lang University. My major is industrial design. Even though I’m a newbie but I will work hard, cultivating every moment. During my studies, I wanted to improve my skills, so I participated in a number of contests, including those “Designed by Vietnam” and “In art we trust”, which have awards. I have a love for things related to the traditions and people and I hope to have the opportunity to experience, learn about this in the future.

Project: Khứ Hồi
Mentor/s: Jennifer Conroy-Smith (RMIT University) Le Ba Ngoc (Vietcraft) Thao Vu (Kilomet109)

designer

Han Nha DamVan Lang University

A person with medium-length hair cut in a layered bob with dark framed glasses and wearing a faded black t-shirt. They are looking out the window and in the distant background you can see trees and a city

My name is Han Nha Dam, I am a fourth-year student at Van Lang University and my major is industrial design. Although I am a newbie I will work hard to improve my skill every moment. For industrial design, besides focusing on aesthetics and functionality, I want to combine traditional cultural values to create my own features for the product. I am very happy and excited to get a chance to collaborate with Australian designers and artisans on the here/there project. I hope to have the opportunity to learn and improve my knowledge from this project.

W: Han Nha Dam
F: Nhã Hân
I: @nhahan_2109

Han Nha Dam also thanks the Australian embassy in Vietnam, RMIT Culture, RMIT CAST, RMIT Vietnam, VICAS, Vietcraft, Vietnam Festival of Creativity and Design, Vietnam design group, etc.

Project: Nhà
Mentor/s: Dale Hardiman (Dowel Jones) Dương Nguyễn (ELLE Decoration) Ronnie Lacham (RMIT University)

mentor

Dale Hardiman

A person with closely-cropped fine hair on their crown and no hair on the top of their head, blue eyes, white skin. They are wearing a black button-up shirt and are sitting in front of a white wall.

Melbourne-based designer Dale Hardiman is the co-founder of furniture and object brand Dowel Jones, collaborative project Friends & Associates, and also produces work under his own name. Hardiman explores the social, ecological and political life of materials and the systems through which they are made and supplied. His projects often interrogate the notion of place and how designed goods and systems are ultimately informed by people and communities exercising values, behaviours and attitudes towards resources and supply chains. Hardiman’s work is held in private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of South Australia. In 2021, Hardiman was named 1 of the 100 worldwide game-changers in design by Architectural Digest Italy.

Mentoring: djam nha han

mentor

Dewi Cooke

A person looking straight at the camera. They have dark eyes and hair, and they're smiling. They're weaing a beaded necklace, light pink singlet, and blue woen overshirt.

Dewi Cooke is the CEO of The Social Studio, a not-for-profit social enterprise providing education and work opportunities in fashion and the creative industries to people from refugee and new migrant backgrounds. Here, she oversees an RMIT-accredited training program, an Ethical Clothing Australia-accredited manufacturing studio and a socially-conscious retail venture as well as numerous creative and community projects.

She’s passionate about the intersection of creativity, community and opportunity, about dismantling barriers to participation for those from non-traditional education backgrounds, as well as the potential for revitalisation within the Australian textiles manufacturing industry.

Prior to joining The Social Studio she was a journalist with 15 years experience working across the arts, social affairs and podcasting, much of it spent at The Age in Melbourne. She has a master’s from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York, was a Knight-News21 fellow and has three hair-raisingly energetic children.

Mentoring: pham hoang linh

mentor

Dương Nguyễn

A person standing in front of a window with lights on behing the window. The person is smiling at the camera and wearing red lipstick, a thin black necklace and pink top with no sleeves. They have long black hair, tan skin and dark eyes.

Dương Nguyễn is an experienced lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in the design industry. Skilled in Design Management, Typography, Art Direction, Editorial Design, Communication Design. Strong education professional with a Master’s Degree focused in Visual Design from SPD Scuola Politecnica Di Design, SPD Milano and Design Management from Savannah College of Arts and Design, USA. Currently working as Managing Editor for ELLE Decoration Vietnam. Board member of EDIDA ( ELLE Decoration International Design Awards from 2017 until now), board member of ASHUI awards ( 2019 until now). Mentor of Design By Vietnam Competition (2020 until now). Board member of Top 10 Interior Design Awards (2020 until now).

Mentoring: pham hoang linh

mentor

James Bartle

A person wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt and a black watch. They have tanned skin and medium-coloured eyed, and closely cropped hair. They are smiling at something off the camera, to their right.

James Bartle is the founding CEO of Outland Denim, the Australian denim brand known for their revolutionary approach to social and environmental sustainability. Driven to create social change, Bartle created Outland Denim as an avenue of opportunity for women from backgrounds of modern slavery and those vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Outland Denim’s unique business model developed by Bartle has been proven to provide a ‘freedom dividend’, benefiting not only the brand’s team, but their family and community too.

In 2019 and 2020 Bartle was named one of Rivet Magazine’s 50 Most Influential People in Denim. Since launching in Australia four years ago, Outland Denim has launched in retail powerhouses like Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, and David Jones, and has been worn by the likes of Meghan Markle and Leonardo DiCaprio. Outland Denim is Australia’s first B Corp Certified denim brand, in 2020 the brand was named the winner of the Thomson Reuters Stop Slavery Award, and was the only company to receive the inaugural Global SDG award in more than one category.

Mentoring: tom trandt minh dao

mentor

Jennifer Conroy-Smith

A black and white photo of a person with long light-coloured hair, light skin and eyes. They are wearing round glasses with a thin dark frame, dangling earrings in geometric shapes, and a dark-coloured shirt. They're smiling at the camera person and sitting in front of a light-coloured wall.

Jennifer Conroy-Smith is a Melbourne-based, British artist specialising in porcelain, predominantly creating site specific installations and sculpture.

Drawn to porcelain for its purity and its ability to transmit luminance, investigations explore light, shadow and movement through technically challenging attenuated tactile forms. Exploring the dichotomy of the porcelain’s strength with its gentle aesthetic, space and mass are treated equally, with an integral interplay of voids encased within contorted porcelain.

Jennifer’s work has been acquired for both public and private collections, and she divides her time between working to commission for National and International clients, and lecturing at RMIT University.

Mentoring: luu nhu ng c

mentor

Le Ba Ngoc

A person sitting in front of a bookcase. The person has black hair that has a slight wave in it, and is about the length of the top of the neck. They also have a moustache, brown skin and dark eyes. They are wearing a blue collared shirt and thin-framed glasses.

Mr. Le Ba Ngoc is one of the founders of Vietcraft. Before that he worked as both National and International Consultant for over 80 projects and programmes. He prepared the National export strategies for handicraft and furniture sectors and approved by the Government. He has experience in every aspect of handicraft value chain. He has traveled to over 40 countries and established close relationships with many international organizations and businesses.

Mentoring: luu nhu ng c

mentor

Ronnie Lacham

In this image, the person is blurred and there is a sea sponge in focus. The sea sponge is yellow and spongey, and has bits of seaweed coming out of it. You can make out that the person has a big black beard, dark eyes and short-cropped hair. They are wearing a red shirt and there is a yellow light making the photograph have a warm feeling. The background looks like a clay wall.

Ronnie Lacham is a designer and researcher currently completing a PHD focused on the aesthetics of time and timeless objects. As a designer, his interest sits in the intersection of materialising the immaterial (time) as a method to shape design, history, and culture. Passionate about cultural narratives through the aesthetic dialogue of inhabiting time through history, memory and grafting as a hermeneutic circle, his design practise has always been personal, social, and political. A Poetic Designer, founder and director of Timeless Objects, and practitioner, educator and researcher focused on Industrial design at RMIT University.

Mentoring: djam nha han

mentor

Thao Vu

A person with brown skin, dark eyes and long dark hair sitting in front of a blue and red curtain and using a paintbrush to dip into a cylindrical beaker filled with blue liquid. There is another beaker ion the table and some natural objects. Ther person is wearing a blue shirt.

Thao Vu is the founder and Design Director of Kilomet109, a sustainable fashion brand from Hanoi, Vietnam. She is a fashion designer by training and also a practicing textile artist. Her art and design work focuses on sustainable textile practices in contemporary Vietnam, and has been exhibited around the world in prominent international art and design shows, university symposiums, and featured across multiple media channels.

She founded Kilomet109 in 2012 as a fashion label and social enterprise that blends contemporary design with traditional Vietnamese craftsmanship. Her work uses design innovation as a means of raising public awareness about at risk rural minority communities in Vietnam, and supporting the preservation of craft villages. Thao collaborates with communities of indigenous artisan women, representing different ethnic minority groups to create eco-friendly textiles and dyes that are incorporated into Kilomet109’s collections and art installations.

Mentoring: pham hoang linh

Play

Quấn
A project by Tom Trandt Minh Đạo,
Mentored by james bartle thao vu

Quấn recalls the breeze of urban culture and Vietnamese community with a design approach that strongly focuses on sustainable elements. Highlighting the hidden wit of native people and balanced with aesthetics and functionality, Quấn is a friendly and youthful introduction that portrays the image of urbanization in Vietnam. The collection supports the sustainable movement of the fashion industry by using recycled materials from Saigon. Combined with experimentation and artistic expression in design and textiles manipulation and processes, Quấn carries a pioneering attitude through an impressive concept implementation, while capturing traditional culture in the heart of the city and Vietnamese people.

Quấn collection brings colorful art to the local culture of Vietnam. From a citizen's perspective, electric cables are a unique symbol for the city, presenting a confused visual impression but constantly flowing energy. Using construction methods from knitting techniques, and crafting 3D shapes from recycled materials, Quấn brings an exciting presence to Vietnam's urban heritage. The whole collection underlines the nation's development and the witty voice behind the brand's activities.

Sep–Nov. 22

Day / Night