New Agency: Owning Your Future
Exhibition dates: Friday 1 March - Saturday 4 May
How will you grow old? Can you live forever? What kind of ancestor do you want to be? Will your house outlive you?
The twenty-first century has ushered in a longevity revolution with the life expectancy of human beings almost doubling in the last hundred years made possible by healthier lifestyles and improved medical care. This is echoed in Australia, which has one of the highest life expectancies in the world.
The ageing of the population has seen the demographics of Australian society changing: one-fifth of its population will be over 65 by 2053. The extension of life has also seen a new age category of over-85s emerging. This puts pressure on the wider community to address the varying experiences of our elders around issues of civic participation, medical care, pensions, public space, entertainment, accessibility, employment and housing.
Growing older tomorrow will be very different than today. The retirement of Australians relies upon the financial security of the home and superannuation. As home ownership is becoming an impossibility for many younger Australians, how does this shift future models of living for the elderly and for society? What can one learn from radical forms of dwelling currently underway in Australia? What models of home ownership can adapt to the maturing of society and a changing market economy?
New Agency: Owning Your Future is a design research project that poses these questions. Taking the form of a public investigation, the audience is a participant in Sibling Architecture’s research within the gallery to examine and discuss the futures of dwelling through the lens of an ageing population. Visitors engage with a series of activities within Tin Sheds Gallery: exploring precedents on a spinning lazy Susan, a guided meditation, and sketching out their desires via a survey.
A series of events accompany the exhibition where ageing experts, architects and community members meet for conversations on the futures of housing and Australia’s ageing population. New Agency: How will you live in the future?
New Agency has been made possible through the support of RMIT Design Hub and Creative Victoria.
Photos by Maja Baska ©2019