David Congram began his career as a writer and editor by accident, having penned an essay on Ovid’s erotic elegies for class.
Unknowingly circulated through the University of Sydney’s classics and ancient history departments and, simultaneously, for peer review via the editorial board of academic literary journal CLASSICVM, the essay was eventually returned to him with full marks – and happy addenda, “cheque enclosed.”
So, there you go.
Over the fifteenish years since, he traded in oversexed Romans for contemporary art, architecture and design. An abridged sampling:
Formally earning his editorial byline at Indesign Media Asia Pacific – first as an editor, then the head content editor across Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong – David reported on the Asia Pacific’s architecture, design, engineering and applied arts sectors across print, digital and broadcast platforms, including Indesign Magazine, Habitus Magazine, Architecture & Design, CUBES, LookBox Living, Infolink and Design Quarterly.
He remains a contributing writer and critic for an array of architecture, design, art, finance and culture titles, and has had pleasure working with esteemed agencies, architecture firms and design studios across the Asia-Pacific region, often collaborating with luxury design brands sited in Oceania, Europe and the United States.
He was head of the communications team that launched Asia Pacific’s only regional design awards (INDE.Awards, 2018) via which he additionally launched and managed the region’s only full-service branding and content agency for the AECO sector, C-GEN Indesign. He continues to consult on strategic communications, marketing and branding to architecture firms, design studios, organisations and private enterprises.
David latterly developed expertise as a curator, serving as the architecture co-curator at the Sherman Centre for Culture and Ideas (SCCI) – a not-for-profit architecture and fashion think-tank founded by noted philantropist Dr Gene Sherman AM. At SCCI, he traditionally produced bi-annual festivals of public programming for the design-conscious and -curious. In the throes of COVID-19, 2020 through 2021, he served as the executive producer for SCCI Cinéphile Hub’s film series of twenty-four (and counting) digital documentaries he produced remotely in Sydney, Tokyo, London and Jerusalem. Following, he provided a chapter, the production and editorial services for the landmark monograph The Spoken Object: a collector’s journey in fashion, jewellery, design and architecture (Images Publishing 2022) detailing one of Asia Pacific’s most extraordinary private collections of applied arts.
At the close of 2022 he co-curated the final SCCI Architecture Hub with Dr Sherman, and additionally co-produced the SCCI Fashion Hub with Timothy Nicol-Ford and Victoria Brewster, at the Design Museum (Kensington), by invitation of the High Commission, the British Council and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
David Congram is a citizen of Australia, and is based in London, United Kingdom. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP, United Kingdom), the National Association of the Visual Arts and the National Press Club (NAVA and NCP Australia).
