Trent Jansen: Two Decades of Design Anthropology is a survey exhibition that celebrates Trent Jansen’s first 20 years of design practice, highlighting his evolution as one of Australia’s most innovative object designers. 

Through his distinctive approach, Design Anthropology, Jansen examines the past and reimagines a contemporary Australian identity. Grounded in Material Culture Theory, this methodology blends research, storytelling, and co-creation to produce artefacts that embody cultural values, ideas, and histories.

The exhibition follows Jansen’s journey from his early works, transforming road signs into stools, to groundbreaking collaborations with Indigenous Australian artists and designers, including Vicki West, Johnny Nargoodah, Errol Evans, and Tanya Singer. 

More than collaboration, Jansen builds lasting relationships that extend beyond the final product, ensuring that the voices and stories of those he works with continue to shape narratives of Country, culture, and identity. These partnerships have produced objects that honour marginal histories and cultural narratives, telling relational stories that offer a new foundation for Australia identity.

The exhibition features key works from throughout Jansen’s 20 years of professional practice, brought together for the first time and presented as part of the 2025 Melbourne Design Week program. Melbourne Design Week is an initiative of the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

Exhibition documentation © Tobias Titz.