Australian Design Centre: Presenting creative practice in craft and design in 2025

*This URL is presented for the purposes of assessment for Creative Australia, Arts Projects for Organisations Application submitted September 2024.

Australian Design Centre has a long-held reputation for curating and producing exhibitions of the very best work of established and mid-career craftspeople and designers along with providing emerging designer makers with a platform to launch their careers. 

We maintain a high level of excellence with the expertise of the current team supplemented with guest curators, designers and writers on multiple projects. There is a high demand on our programming capacity with many creative professionals seeking to work with us to produce and present their work.

Across three spaces in Sydney (Gallery 1, Gallery 2 and Object Space) we present up to 20 exhibitions each year and over 50 events in addition to the annual Sydney Craft Week Festival.

In 2025 ADC will produce and present the following projects in Sydney and across Australia through ADC On Tour:  

• Starting in November 2024 and continuing through February 2025 in Gallery 1 is re/JOY by ceramic artist Vipoo Srivilasa. Australian Design Centre is the commissioning/producing institution in this project where the artist was awarded one of the first Creative Australia VACS commissioning grants. This project, focusing on the experience of migration, will then tour across Australia from 2025 to 2028 with significant support that we secured from the Australian Government's Visions of Australia national exhibition touring program. In Gallery 2 is Crafted Liberation a project by designer Nila Rezai focussed on the inequality in Iranian society where women are not able to attend sporting matches, the designer made stadium seats using donated headscarves to create a new material suitable for furniture.
• In March we produce and present a partnership project with the Jewellery and Metalsmiths Group NSW, Profile: Contemporary Jewellery and Object Award. This will be the third time we have produced this sector leading exhibition with up to 100 national and international artists who are JMGA members. In Gallery 2 we present The Robert Foster Metal Prize.
• In May/June we present an exhibition in collaboration with the National Indigenous Art Fair that will see work by up to 15 Art Centres participating in the Fair present exhibition standard work in this First Nations curated presentation. We produced a small exhibition pilot in 2024. This will be an extended version based on the success of that pilot.
• In July we present JamFactory touring exhibition New Exuberance: Contemporary Textiles for a Sydney audience.
• In August/September the next iteration of the Living Treasures Masters of Australian Craft series The Story So Far by Australian/international artist Helen Britton will launch at ADC and commence a national tour of Australia with a presentation at the Museum of Craft and Design (MAD) in New York to follow.
• October/November is ADC initiative the MAKE Award: Biennial Prize for Innovation in Contemporary Craft and Design, the richest prize craft and design in Australia with $45,000 in cash prizes, will launch the exhibition of 30+ finalists at ADC and then tour to three capital cities (200 entries were received for the inaugural prize in 2023 currently showing at Geelong Art Gallery).
• Summer of 2025/2026 will include an exciting exhibition project that will be entirely First Nations led in Gallery 1. In Gallery 2 we present Tracelines/Landlines by contemporary jewellery artist Melinda Young.

Continuing its five year national and regional tour from 2022-2026 is the ADC project produced in collaboration with The Australian Ceramics Association, SIXTY: Celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of The Journal of Australian Ceramics.

The ninth anniversary of the Sydney Craft Week Festival will draw makers from across the country and the world to Sydney to participate in this highly anticipated event. 

Six small but impactful exhibitions will be presented in the Object Space window gallery on William Street. Three of these are a collaboration with Regional Arts NSW to give these regional artists an opportunity to reach a Sydney audience with their work. Three further exhibitions incollaboration with Diversity Arts Australia will bring artists' from culturally diverse backgrounds to Sydney audiences.

In addition in March 2025 Australian Design Centre is curating an exhibition of work by 20 Australian, First Nations and non-First Nations, artists to exhibit at Gallery Handwerk in Munich for the International craft fair. This exhibition will also include New Zealand and Pacific Island artists curated by the NZ Dowse Museum.

In the second half of 2025 we are working with Atta Gallery in Thailand on a further international opportunity for Australian object artists.

In November 2025 the third iteration of the Transformative Design ARC funded research project with UniSA/UNSW/Australian Design Centre/JamFactory will head to Design Miami. ADC will work with two designer makers on transformative material/object based projects and head to Design Miami as a market test for this work. This experience will bring the creative practitioners into close connection with international collectors and galleries.

In a new collaboration with UTS, ADC will produce the fourth series of our successful podcast Object: stories of design and craft in 2025.

Here are some comments that speak to the value of our program:

The work ADC does to promote and support Australian designers, artists, and craft practitioners is extremely valuable. Artists are provided with a wonderful platform for showcasing their work, particularly through ADC's touring programs, which enable people in remote areas to appreciate the variety and quality of Australian artwork. Vipoo Srivilasa, artist

The value ADC adds to the sector, both locally and nationally, and the importance of a well- funded craft and design organisation cannot be overestimated. The ADC plays a vital role in providing a public platform for emerging designers and communicating design’s capacity to solve some of our most urgent social and environmental issues. Professor Kate Sweetapple, Head of School of Design, UTS

"I wish to stress to Creative Australia that ADC is a strong organisation delivering an excellent program with limited funding. For ADC to continue to deliver such a high standard of programming it needs to be funded. Without funding for its exhibition and tour programs support for hundreds of makers and designers is at risk." Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW, Liz Williamson

"I have been personally impressed by the stewardship of director Lisa Cahill during a challenging time in the organisation's history and note the establishment of the Sydney Craft Week Festival and the philanthropically funded MAKE Award as further important achievements." Brian Parkes, CEO JamFactory.

For craft, design and the creative industries to thrive this project funding for ADC is essential. ADC continues to make an excellent and extraordinary contribution to Australian arts and creativity which deserves to be funded by Creative Australia.