Wellington: DA Conversations Autumn series — Meet the speakers
This years DA Conversations are back in Wellington with local creatives sharing their stories. In the lead up to next week’s event, let’s meet the speakers!
Angela Meyer — Co-Director at Double Denim
Angela Meyer often surprises, sometimes shocks and always delivers.
In a nutshell: She has a track record for innovative, behaviour- changing strategies. She’s not afraid to make hard decisions in the name of high-impact results.
Reason for being? Many of Angela’s personal projects are about helping women realise how ace they are; she started the Real Hot Bitches international dance troupe. Ange’s happy place is in nature, and she will fight fiercely to defend it.
Claim to fame? Ange is known for having wild adventures – like that time she and her husband, along with their one year old baby, bought a boat in the Caribbean and sailed it through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific. Things didn’t end so well. Want to know more? Why not read Sea Fever, the book she wrote about it.
Angela was also a finalist in the 2016 Women of Influence Awards.
Anna Dean — Co-Director at Double Denim
Anna Dean has changed the name of a capital city.
In a nutshell: Not everyone can turn online buzz into real-world results, and vice versa. Anna Dean can. By knowing how to make the right noise with the right people, she’s in the business of making corporate cool.
Reason for being? Anna cut her teeth in the art world – helping friends’ projects get the attention they deserved. A Golden Bay girl at heart, she also has a deep connection to the land and is never afraid to plunge into the sea. Social issues, like the gender pay gap, also get Anna fired up.
Claim to fame? TV3’s David Farrier described Anna as a “marketing genius” after she changed Wellington to “Vellington” for the launch of What We Do in the Shadows.
Nan O’Sullivan — Associate Dean and the Programme Director of the emergent Design for Social Innovation major at Victoria University, School of Design
As an Associate Dean and the Programme Director of the emergent Design for Social Innovation major at Victoria University, School of Design, Nan has set a challenging goal for the new programme. Her aim is to radically recalibrate design education, thinking and praxis to be more socially responsible and responsive through the inclusion of cultural acumen.
Nan has recently returned form Europe where she presented her research at numerous design conferences in Spain, Switzerland and Denmark. She describes the takeaway of these discussions as being, “that indigenous knowledge is not old or distant or confined to now outmoded times. But that it continues to be relevant and evolve through rebellious, resistant and resilient practices of its own.” Her approach argues
that by looking to the roots of this knowledge keys toward design’s contribution to positive social change can be unearthed.
Nan combines her research with the new design provocation, Transition Design to further her belief that there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained through a recalibration of our compass as designers to be more culturally diverse, gender inclusive, empathetic, sympathetic, compassionate, and sustaining in our creative endeavours.
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Join us at BizDojo Wellington at 115 Tory Street — 10th April from 6pm onwards, opening with drinks and nibbles and the conversation kick-starting at 6:30pm. Get your tickets for Wellington here.
