Sydney Contemporary’s VIP preview always has its own rhythm, an hour before the fair floor opens to the public, when the rooms are quiet and the conversations are unhurried.
In partnership with Polestar.
This year, Shona McElroy arrived in a Polestar 3, as the Swedish brand returns for it’s fourth consecutive year as Sydney Contemporary’s luxury electric vehicle partner, a partnership built on the idea that art and automotive design are asking the same question of the people who make them.
McElroy, principal of Sydney interior design studio Smac Studio, spent the morning moving through the fair with the same instinct she brings to a client’s home: slow, curious, alert to detail. It’s an instinct she sees as fundamental to good design of any kind. “I don’t know how you push design forward without being curious about how things are going to work in different spaces and places and applications,” she says.
The morning also marked the Polestar 5’s Sydney Contemporary debut, the brand’s newest and most ambitious model, and one McElroy describes in the same language she’d use for a considered piece of art. “I would describe the design philosophy behind the Polestar 5 as extremely considered and well thought out,” she says. “It’s very Scandinavian in the way that it’s designed, where everything feels so purposeful, like it’s meant to be there.”
For McElroy, the connection between design and how people actually move through their day isn’t incidental; it’s the whole point. “We as designers stand for bringing luxury to everyday life, but also being responsible for it,” she says. “Thinking through every way that people move throughout their day and making every experience enjoyable, and I think that Polestar has absolutely nailed it in the Polestar 5.”
Interior designer Shona McElory of SMAC Studio.
Elsewhere across the fair, Polestar ambassador and industrial designer David Caon joined a panel discussion on materiality, another thread in a partnership that treats creativity and thoughtful expression as shared ground between two very different industries. As Europe’s only fully electric car brand, Polestar has built its identity around uncompromised design in service of a sustainable, electric future, a position the Polestar 5 was built to embody.
For those who want to go further than a preview, expressions of interest are now open for an exclusive Polestar 5 drive day later this year, offering Sydney Contemporary VIPs the chance to experience the car’s performance and craftsmanship for themselves.
