Messy and Meaningful: Shaping an Inclusive Future of Design

07 Oct 2025
06:00pm - 08:00pm
FREE
Trades Hall Common Rooms, Corner Lygon & Victoria Streets, Carlton

RMIT University is overjoyed to partner with Design Fringe, as part of Melbourne Fringe Festival 2025, joining a bold new conversation about the future of Design Fringe.

Where has Design Fringe been - and where is it going?

Join us for a lively, reflective, and forward-looking conversation that explores the evolving identity of Melbourne Fringe's Design Fringe program. We'll be bringing together past participants, sector leaders, and passionate design voices to unpack the legacy of this iconic program and imagine what it could become.

Our panel will feature Dr. Fayen d'Evie, RMIT Lecturer in Communications Design, co-founder of the Access Lab and Library (ALL) and member of Melbourne Fringe's Access Advisory Committee. Also on the panel will be Dr. Judith Glover, RMIT Senior Lecturer in Industrial Design, and Dale Hardiman, co-founder of Dowel Jones furniture, Fringe Furniture alumni, and now member on Fringe's Advisory Committee.

As we reflect on decades of creative risk-taking and community building, from the program's origins as Fringe Furniture to its more recent reinvigoration as Design Fringe, we'll also ask: what needs to change? What should be preserved, and what should be reimagined entirely?

As Fringe Design stands on the dawn of a new chapter in partnership with RMIT University, now is the time to collectively shape the future of Design Fringe.

Expect an honest look back at the history of Design Fringe and its provocations, and a sector-led discussion about the role of design in shaping inclusive futures. Anticipate asking big questions about accessibility, sustainability, equity, and open access frameworks. Who gets to take up space in design? What could Design Fringe look like as a future platform of inclusive and experimental design practice?

We're not shying away from the messy and the meaningful. Design Fringe in partnership with RMIT is changing shape. Come be a part of what it looks like next.

Presented by RMIT University in partnership with Melbourne Fringe.

Supported by the RMIT City North Social Innovation Precinct Activation Program. More info about this Activation Program can be found here.

Photo credits Tanya Voltchanskaya.

Related events

Now accepting 2027 First Site Gallery project proposals

28 Sep 2026 - 01 Nov 2026

Are you an RMIT student with a creative project you’d like to share? We are calling for proposals from RMIT students, who are currently enrolled in the College of Design and Social Context, to exhibit in the 2027 First Site Gallery exhibition program.

Melbourne Fringe Opening Night Gala

29 Sep 2026

Beneath the glowing arches of RMIT University's iconic venue, The Capitol, the Melbourne Fringe Opening Night Gala crackles with life. A 90-minute spectacle of everything Fringe does best: bold ideas, high-voltage performances, and independent art with heat you can feel from the back row.

'The Voice of the Maribyrnong' by Elijah Cristiano

06 Oct 2026 - 30 Oct 2026

Elijah Cristiano combines underwater footage, archival images and sound to examine the Maribyrnong River’s colonial and industrial histories – and the ways photography has framed the river.

Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

Learn more about our commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Messy and Meaningful: Shaping an Inclusive Future of Design