MAKE Award: Biennial Prize for Innovation in Australian Craft and Design

JamFactory and Australian Design Centre present this major new national award celebrating innovation in contemporary craft and design. Works were submitted by Australian designer makers demonstrating innovation in technique or material use, and the 30 pre-selected finalists form this exciting exhibition.

The winner of the MAKE Award, ceramic artist Vipoo Srivilasa, received a cash prize of $35,000 with a second prize of $10,000 going to glass artist Jessica Murtagh with a high commendation to textile artists and master weaver Liz Williamson. This is the richest non-acquisitive prize for craft and design in Australia.

The MAKE Award finalists are: Luke Abbot, Kelly Austin, Andrea Barker, Julie Blyfield, Samuel Burns (Sabu Studio), Lisa Cahill, Cobi Cockburn, Csongvay Blackwood, Carly Tarkari Dodd, Evan Dunstone, Gretal Ferguson, Hannah Gason, Minqi Gu, Rowena, Juliana, Angela Foong (High Tea with Mrs Woo), Kumuntjai Napanangka Jack, Cara Johnson, Sherrie Knipe, Korban/Flaubert, Johannes Kuhnen, Ruth Ju-shih Li, Brenda Livermore, Nick Mount, Jessica Murtagh, Kenny (Yong soo) Son, Studio Ventana X Tim Noone, Vipoo Srivilasa, Bic Tieu, Angela Valamanesh, Liz Williamson, Damien Wright and Bonhula Yunupingu.

The MAKE Award showcases designer/makers working across all related disciplines including ceramics, glass, furniture/woodwork, metalwork, textiles and fibre, and contemporary jewellery.

Finalists are designer/makers with a high level of skill either working with materials that are new to their practice, new or traditional materials, or working in new and innovative ways.

The MAKE Award is an initiative of the Australian Design Centre.

Carly Tarkari Dodd, Aunty’s Bag, 2023. Photographer: Connor Patterson 

Kath Inglis: Immersed in the Offsure

South Australian contemporary jewellery artist Kath Inglis presents a solo exhibition of vividly coloured and intricately crafted wearable pieces that are inspired by her research on marine algae at the State Herbarium in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. Epiphytes are plants or algae that grow upon one another, with a single plant hosting one or many others in a rich entanglement of biodiversity. This new body of work reflects Inglis’ admiration of these complex arrangements as a demonstration of a mutually respectful and sustainable way of living together.

 In her practice, Inglis transforms flexible Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) sheets from a prosaic material into precious wearable pieces through simple handworked processes such as dyeing, cutting, carving and heat fusing. When observing dried marine algae specimens through a microscope during her research, Inglis frequently referenced their intriguing surfaces to familiar plastic materials — cling wrap, lollypop sticks, cellophane, fishing line and mesh fruit bags. As many of these plastic items are often discarded after a single use, Inglis chose to weave these materials into her explorations upon returning to her jewellery bench. In this way, Inglis explores the rich entanglement of values between the living and non-living, thereby recognising positive natural relationships, creative hope and the seeking of material justice.

 Exhibitor: Kath Inglis

Kath Inglis, Stypopium flabelliforme Brooch, 2023, hand cut, carved coloured, and heat fused PVC, cellophane printing, ink, stainless steel pin, 62 x 90 x  13 mm, photographer: Craig Arnold

2024 FUSE Glass Prize

Presented by JamFactory, the FUSE Glass Prize is a non-acquisitive biennial prize for Australian and New Zealand glass artists.

The winner of the FUSE Glass Prize will receive a cash prize of AU$20,000. In addition, the winner of the David Henshall Emerging Artist Prize will receive AU$5,000 cash and a professional development opportunity at JamFactory valued at a further AU$5,000.

18 Finalists have been selected and will be exhibited in Adelaide, followed by a tour to Canberra and Sydney.

Finalists are

David Henshall Emerging Artist Category: Madeline Cardone (NSW), Hamish Donaldson (Vic), Alexandra Hirst (SA), Emeirely Nucifora-Ryan (ACT), Ember Satyn (SA) and Carman Skeehan (SA)

Established Category: Kate Baker (NSW), Clare Belfrage (SA), Annette Blair (NSW), Mel Douglas (ACT), Hannah Gason (ACT), Katie-Ann Houghton (ACT), Tom Moore (SA), Ian Mowbray (Vic), Nick Mount (SA), Kirstie Rea (NSW), Layla Walter (NZ) and Kathryn Wightman (NZ)

Annette Blair, In Stillness, 2024, 490 x 470 x 330, Photo: Adam McGrath

Eugenie Kawabata:
Botanica Exotica: Unknown Civilisations

Eugenie Kawabata is an independent Naarm/Melbourne based designer and maker whose practice is located at the intersection of art and design. With a strong focus on materiality and sustainability, Kawabata’s work is defined by her skill and innovation in crafting objects from industrial waste, the artist stitching, dyeing, painting and impregnating the materials with resin to transform them into objects of value. She draws inspiration from the transformative power of design and focuses her approach on the tactile experiences of crafting objects, emphasising the design process as a hands-on endeavour.

 Botanica Exotica: Unknown Civilisations features a new body of works that are inspired by walks Kawabata took through Naarm/Melbourne’s parks and botanical gardens within a 5km radius from her home under the COVID lockdowns. These walks became a daily ritual and escape. The predictability and rigidity of the gardens’ formal design led Kawabata to examine the disrupters with the Victorian design construct: the messy, unbeautiful, untamed and unintentional.

 Captivated by the visual dialogue between exotic and native plant life, she was particularly taken by the often overlooked elements and tensions that coexistence presents: oozing resins and gums, scars and disfigurements caused by invasive micro-organisms, parasitic plants and exotic fungi. The unwanted guests. The vessels featured in this exhibition are manifestations of Kawabata’s botanical observations and provoke imaginings of what lies beneath the surface: the complex unseen networks that form ‘the unknown civilisations’. By inviting the viewer to challenge the disposability of everyday objects, Botanica Exotica: Unknown Civilisations asks us to consider the waste we create and reflect on our interactions with nature.

Liam Fleming, Marcel Hoogstad Hay and Drew Spangenberg: What Is

What Is has evolved from observation and discussion relating to the three exhibiting artists and how their works correlate. Liam Fleming, Marcel Hoogstad Hay and Drew Spangenberg are all JamFactory alumni based in South Australia and each has developed a unique signature over the course of the last decade. Whilst their trademark styles differ significantly, all three artists have progressed from a production background to focus on producing powerful exhibition works that explore the many breathtaking possibilities in working with glass.

Video: Connor Patterson