ADC On Tour

Australian Design Centre is a leading centre for contemporary craft and design in Australia. We play a critical role in building a significant design culture for this country by nurturing a nation of innovative makers and thinkers and inspiring audiences to use design in their lives. Our exhibitions, education and public program events, research and digital content actively nurtures innovation in making and the development of new audiences for craft, art and design across Australia.

Touring has been central to our work for 60 years. Since the 1970's ADC has toured nationally and been at the forefront of providing regional Australia with access to cutting edge work and ideas and since 2006, more than 50% of our touring venues have been regionally based. Presenting the work and innovative practices of artists in craft and design is central to all our work. ADC On Tour has an unprecedented national reach that reinforces our role as a significant national organisation.

Our exhibitions, educational initiatives, and public events, coupled with cutting-edge research and digital content, actively cultivate innovation in making and cultivate new audiences for craft, art, and design across the whole of Australia.

Since 2005 we have presented 35 touring exhibitions that have made more than 250 stops at 90 different arts organisations across all states and territories. Collectively and to date, more than 1.7 million people have seen these exhibitions.

Four exhibitions have also toured internationally to great acclaim, including Global Local to the Victoria & Albert Museum, London in 2005 & the 2nd International Triennale of Craft at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan in 2013.

Partnerships are a central part of the touring work undertaken by ADC and in the last eight years, some significant partnerships have been established to help develop different touring exhibitions & their related education and public programs. Lola Greeno was developed in partnership with the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston and in 2015 ADC worked with Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo to produce Shapeshifters 3D: Printing the Future.

In 2022, ADC and The Australian Ceramics Association partnered to develop SIXTY: The Journal of Australian Ceramics 60th Anniversary 1962-2022, a special exhibition project to acknowledge this significant anniversary. This national touring exhibition of Australian contemporary ceramics tours from 2022-2026, visiting 16-venues across Australia.

In 2023 Australian Design Centre launched the MAKE Award: Biennial prize for Innovation in Australian Craft and Design a major national award celebrating innovation in contemporary craft and design. Works were submitted by Australian designer-makers demonstrating innovation in technique or material use, and 30 selected finalists form this exciting exhibition.
The exhibition is touring to presenting partners JamFactory in Adelaide and Geelong Gallery in Victoria in 2023/ 2024.

Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft, is one of ADC’s most important touring series celebrating some of Australia’s most respected and iconic contemporary craft artists. Over 400,000 people have visited a Living Treasures exhibition to date across 44 venues nationwide.

At the end of 2023 ADC announced that its next Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft series would feature Helen Britton, a multidisciplinary Australian artist based in Munich, Germany. Her practice includes jewellery, sculpture, drawings, stencils and installations, and is informed by popular culture and folk art, threatened traditions, environmental destruction and human anxiety.
A grant from the Federal Government’s Visions of Australia program will support the research and development for the Centre to work with Helen to develop the exhibition to be presented in Sydney in 2025 with a multi-state national tour to follow.

Vipoo Srivilasa, a Thai-born Australian artist is working on a major new exhibition project to be produced and presented by ADC in Sydney at the end of 2024 titled re/JOY. Vipoo’s participatory art projects inspire individuals to express emotions and experiences through storytelling and clay, fostering profound self-understanding through his ceramic works.

The 2024 ADC On Tour program presents the work of over 50 creative practitioners across three exhibitions at 8-venues nationally.

The Australia Council for the Arts awarded a $100,000 project grant towards infrastructure support for the ADC on Tour national touring program in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.  

Read more here about our funding success here.

Find our about our current touring exhibitions here.

Read the latest ADC On Tour email here.

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Image: Made/Worn: Australian Contemporary Jewellery installed at Glasshouse Port Macquarie, 2020. Photo: Courtesy of Glasshouse, Port Macquarie.