Nineteen designers. Triennale Milano, Tokyo, Los Angeles — and now Auckland.
'Walking sticks & canes', curated by Keiji Takeuchi, opens at Objectspace on 27 June. It is the most considered exhibition the design world has devoted to this object in years. And it asks exactly the right question: why has something carried by millions of people, across every culture and every era, been so comprehensively abandoned by good design?
We've been asking the same thing since we started ooak.
The object the design world forgot
Takeuchi has been thinking about this for a long time. His curatorial premise is deceptively simple: the walking stick is one of the oldest human tools. It began as a branch, trimmed and carried. It became a symbol of authority, of fashion, of wealth. And then, somewhere along the way, it became a thing to be embarrassed about.
That shift — from object of significance to object of pity — is cultural, not functional. The stick didn't change. The attitude around it did.
What Takeuchi has done is assemble 19 designers who refuse to accept that framing. Jasper Morrison. Cecilie Manz. Alberto Meda. Pierre Charpin. Hugo Passos. These are not peripheral names. These are people whose work sits in permanent collections, whose furniture you recognise in the best spaces in the world. And they all turned their attention to this overlooked object and found it rich with possibility.
When designers of this calibre engage with something, it's because they see potential that others have missed.
What serious design attention looks like
The exhibition originated at Triennale Milano during Milan Design Week 2024 — one of the most prestigious design stages in the world. It then travelled to Karimoku Commons in Tokyo and Emeco House in Los Angeles before arriving at Objectspace. This is not a local curiosity. It's a globally touring design exhibition that has landed in Auckland.
Takeuchi, who grew up in Aotearoa before studying in Paris and establishing his studio in Milan, brings a genuinely international perspective — and a quietly radical one. His conviction, which the exhibition makes visible, is that the walking stick has limitless expressive potential. That people deserve objects they're proud to carry. That design has a responsibility to close the gap between what is available and what is possible.
The 19 works in the show demonstrate what happens when that gap is taken seriously. Each piece is distinct. Each reflects a designer's thinking about material, form, grip, balance, and what it means to make something beautiful that also does real work in the world.
Why this matters now
There is a broader design conversation happening — slowly, but with momentum — about objects for people in later life. For too long, that category has been treated as a problem to solve rather than a brief worth caring about. Functional. Compliant. Beige.
The Objectspace exhibition is part of a shift. It argues, through the work of some of the world's most thoughtful designers, that the walking stick deserves the same design rigour as a chair, a lamp, or a watch. That the person carrying it deserves an object they would choose rather than one they would tolerate.
This is the territory ooak was built in. FSC hardwood stems, ocean-recovered handles, colourways with names drawn from Aotearoa's natural world — Kōwhai, Pacific, Coral, Graphite. Every decision we've made has been a design decision, not a compromise. We know exactly what it takes to make something worth owning in this category, because we've done the work.
Seeing Objectspace commit its Chartwell Gallery to this subject, with a curator of Takeuchi's standing and a list of contributors this strong — it matters. It confirms that this conversation is serious, and growing.
Go and see it
'Walking sticks & canes' runs at Objectspace Auckland from 27 June to 30 August 2026. Entry is free.
If you have any interest in design — in what it means to make something considered for a purpose that deserves consideration — this exhibition is worth your time. The image of 19 sticks lined along a gallery wall, each one a distinct answer to the same brief, is a quietly powerful thing to stand in front of.
Takeuchi puts it well. Some people have found novel and fascinating ways to express their personalities and stories through their canes, making them a source of pleasure and pride. The exhibition exists to show that this is possible — and to ask why it isn't more common.
We think we know the answer. And we're working on it.
