Rigg Design Prize 2025
Artwork Labels & Didactics

‘I conceived Banana lounge as a contemporary reinvention of the classic Australian backyard lounge, building on established design principles developed through my current body of work. Through this piece, I hope to highlight an important connection between contemporary furniture in the public eye and its place in the family home – a symbiosis that is key to the preservation and celebration of both.

Limited to an edition of ten, the Banana lounge aspires to join a lineage of iconic Australian lounges, including Marc Newson’s 1980s Lockheed lounge and the Tessa T8 by Fred Lowen from the 1970s – the latter of which occupied pride of place in my grandparents’ lounge room.’ – Patrick Adeney

‘This series of neon pendant lights is an applied investigation into the emotive potential of form, materiality and light in synthesis. Adopting biomorphic shapes and contours that recall lungs, seed pods or underwater organisms, the Affinity series treats lighting as an opportunity for spatial and psychological experience. Inside the acrylic casing of these three pendants, blow-moulded polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) cradles a neon core, the glow of which is muted and diffused. Unlike traditional neon lighting, which requires expertise to install, this modular design is ready to use, elevating neon out of a familiar industrial history and into a distinctly contemporary light source with rich sensorial potential.’ – Kartika Laili Ahmad

‘Ase ama (pronounced ah-shey armour) reinterprets talismanic traditions within precolonial Ghana through a contemporary lens, exploring spirituality, queerness and resilience. Gathered fish bones, recycled glass and brass-cast shea nut and Adinkra symbols form a wearable vessel for protection, concealment and cultural continuity. The design features hidden compartments, shea butter and symbols like Eban (fence) and Nkyinkyim (twisting) to evoke sanctuary, restoration and fluidity. Informed by a research collaboration with Naarm-based queer artist Lilah Benetti, the work affirms queer histories in African history and spiritual life. It redefines adornment as a form of contemporary Indigenous spiritual technology, where ancestral knowledge remains active, shaping the conditions of our present and futures.’ – Ella Badu

‘I’ve really liked learning from senior Tiwi artists Kenny Brown and Pedro Wonaeamirri to make these tunga from stringybark trees. Not many young people are doing this anymore. The design is “sawfish”, or jirtaka. I saw it in a work by old lady, Jean Baptiste Apuatimi. Her husband caught sawfish and used their spikes to paint – hanging them in trees so ants cleaned them. That story goes back to 1943.’ – Walter Brooks

Walter Brooks presents twelve wangatunga, or tunga, folded stringybark bags painted in jilamara – Tiwi ceremonial design – using locally sourced earth pigments. Once used by the wulimawi (old people) to carry water, food and children, tunga also feature in Pukumani ceremonies, during which they are placed over the tops of tutini (poles) as gifts for the deceased.

‘I have been the youngest artist working at Hermannsburg Potters for a long time. At the pottery, we paint our stories on the clay, learning and sharing Western Aranda culture with other artists. I learned to make pots from my grandmother, Dawn Wheeler, and my partner’s grandmother, Kumantjai R. Ungwanaka. Now I make pots with my own stories, in my own way. My body of work shares stories and experiences from young lives lived in my remote Aboriginal community of Ntaria. It is a snapshot of my practice, showing my own unique style, but also show how that sits within the collective history of Hermannsburg Potters.’ – Dallissa Brown

‘Canteen and chairs reframes the dining space through the lens of resourcefulness, memory and material reinvention. The work draws on Australian domestic artefacts and public infrastructure associated with eating, such as bush pantries and barbeque shelters, exploring how shared meals connect place, history and community. Made from solid timber, cast aluminium foundry tailings and salvaged Holden automotive panels, the work combines cooking compartments and service elements, merging preparation with presentation. Echoing vernacular design through material use and subtle wit, Canteen and chairs merges sustainability, cultural memory and the evolving role of design in daily life.’ – Andrew Carvolth

‘Salt explores Australian material culture in relation to the Sydney coastline, an environment shaped by the ongoing interplay of sea and land. The distinctive erosion patterns of Hawkesbury sandstone are translated into formed glass, defining the outer skin of this credenza. Local flora imbues the reclaimed extruded aluminium frame with soft golds, applied through an anodising process developed in our studio. Through these material, processes and ornamentation, the work reflects on the coastline as an ‘aquatic common’ – a place of shifting boundaries and shared experience, where geology, weather and materiality intersect to evoke both contemporary cultural practices and connections to place.’ – Nicola Charlesworth & Kim Stanek

‘Anatomy lessons I, II and III examine the transformative power of specimen logic through contemporary jewellery practice. A rat, toad and pigeon – each an undesirable in the everyday yet a subject of awe and wonder when rendered specimen – are presented as though mid-dissection. The bodies are porcelain, and the internal organs are laid bare within a bronze-lined abdomen. Close inspection reveals the organs are jewellery: a charm bracelet, a series of lockets, an elaborate ring. Anthropocentric notions of preciousness, value and intimacy are revealed in these small tactile objects, inviting the audience to question why or how those notions operate and change across contexts.’ – Samantha Dennis

‘This body of work, created in collaboration with my five-year-old niece Harper, speaks to the passing down of cultural knowledge through self-expression. It includes woven wearables: necklaces, bracelets, rings and hair accessories, alongside versions designed and drawn by Harper, scaled to her height. Using traditional weaving techniques and materials like raffia, ribbon and wire, the work reflects how children intuitively engage with identity and storytelling. It reframes play and adornment as powerful tools for cultural transmission. It celebrates cultural continuity, resilience and adaptation, acknowledging that many Indigenous communities have experienced disruption yet continue to find new ways of keeping knowledge alive. Our culture isn’t static – it’s living and breathing in many ways.’ – Carly Tarkari Dodd

‘My work Gnostalgia stands as an evocation of great mysteries – a remembrance of ancient temples as gateways to the inner and unseen. It reflects the above and the below, the inner and the outer, as the hermetic current pulses through time. Drawing on the entwined histories of glassmaking and alchemy, these vessels act as containers of transformation, shaped through the union of the tria prima – salt, sulphur and mercury. Blending ancient traditions with contemporary digital processes, Gnostalgia holds ancient wisdom in renewed form: a quiet offering of the sacred made visible in the present moment.’ – Hamish Donaldson

‘Crafted entirely from repurposed aluminium offcuts and coloured recycled glass, this cabinet brings together my love of the Australian outdoors and furniture design. A cast bronze magpie is subtly included in the design – an homage to Australia’s native wildlife and turn-of-the-century Australian furniture makers who honoured nature in their work. The use of coloured glass brings a fluid, painterly quality to the piece, evoking the tones and textures of my perception of Australia’s landscape. Grounded in material reuse, this cabinet offers a slower, more reflective alternative to fast design, one that invites connection to place, care for resources and a respect for the handmade.’ – Jack Fearon

‘Humans are natural gatherers, drawn to objects, collecting memories through physical tokens. Memento is shaped by this instinct, reflecting on my own habit of accumulating natural fragments and everyday artefacts, and giving them personal meaning. I work with timber that has fallen on ground, selecting and assembling each piece based on its grain, shape and character, sometimes simply by feel. Through a bodily and intuitive process of carving, I let the forms emerge in collaboration with the wood. The resulting work is at once a vessel, a shelf and a sculptural object. Memento invites reflection on how we attribute value through touch and time into tangible objects.’ – Olive Gill-Hille

‘This series comprises mouth-blown and mirrored-glass sculptural mirrors that reference the phases of the lunar cycle. Throughout human history, the moon has been a constant reminder of the sublime vastness of the cosmos. These mirrors do not function as a conventional mirror would; rather than providing a true reflected image, they show a heavily distorted one. This work is intended to reflect, highlight and enhance the spaces we exist in. It is also intended to be a catalyst for deeper contemplation about how we situate ourselves physically in the universe.’ – Marcel Hoogstad Hay

‘The Plastic Age is a series of neckpieces that honours the presence of shells in jewellery across human history. Archaeological evidence has determined that shells have been used in jewellery since the Middle Stone Age in North Africa. Within the pieces in this series, I have used seashells handed down to me from my mother, collected together when I was a child. The concept of the heirloom is intrinsic to my jewellery practice. I believe plastic should be regarded in the same way – as something to be valued and preserved. Rather than treated as disposable, plastic should be used as preciously as gold.’ – Katherine Hubble

‘Veh, a mother deity, explores contemporary anxieties around technological hybridity and humanity’s shifting relationship with the natural world. The lamp embodies the tension between creation and control, reflecting our entanglement with objects, belief systems and power. Cast in aluminium using a combination of sand casting and innovative 3D-printed investment casting, the work is adorned with synthetic dragon fruits. Veh serves as a symbol of how we both shape and are shaped by the systems we inhabit. Rather than offering sustainability as a solution, Veh questions the ideological roots of disconnection, particularly the belief in human domination over nature.’ – Jay Jermyn

‘Repetition of a mark or gesture has long been practised as a form of meditation. When I’m in my studio making these repeating patterns by hand, I notice that self-consciousness fades, time feels altered, and an awareness of the body is expanded. When they are finished, I feel like I know them deeply, like we have been through something together. They also hold memories. I can look at the pot and remember exactly what I was listening to, or what was going on in my life in the duration of its making. They become important containers of emotion, memory and meaning.’ – Nicolette Johnson

‘Torres Strait islanders are known as saltwater people. We are culturally and spiritually connected to the ocean. The ocean provides us with food; it’s a medium for transport and provides a livelihood for a lot of us. By creating this work out of ghost nets, I want to raise awareness. Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been abandoned, lost or discarded in the ocean. One piece of artwork is an abandoned net that’s not floating in the ocean, continuing to trap and kill many marine species and damage reefs. We all have a duty of care to protect the ocean for our children and their children.’ – Lavinia Ketchell

‘Whiteware – including toilets, plates, bowls, tiles and vessels finished in white glaze – represents a historical shift in ceramics from craft to mass production A kind of whiteness examines and challenges the limits of whiteware and the perceptions of whiteness, culturally and aesthetically. Adopting an inverted approach to the ceramic medium, I have interpreted glaze as the predominant body in the work. I developed over fifty white glazes that were transformed using trace elements in the glaze materials and firing atmospheres. Drawing on both Eastern porcelain traditions and Western reinterpretations, my work flexes between known and unexpected firing outcomes, celebrating chance, subtlety, nuance and variation.’ – Claudia Lau

‘The Twelve Years Room Screen grew from my conviction that the hand of the maker must remain present in an increasingly automated, accelerated design landscape. Built from 432 brass motifs, each pressed, cut, surfaced and stitched by hand, this work scales up to architectural proportions a jewellery technique I first learned twelve years ago. Every component is a record of labour and focus, with slight variations that assert my hand’s presence. Built without permanent joins, the work can be entirely disassembled and renewed. This deliberate choice reflects my enduring commitment to sustainability, uncompromising technical precision and craft in contemporary design.’ – Nicole Lawrence

‘You and me, us never part is a declaration of love to my community. These works stand side by side holding their own space while joining in communion. They embrace collectivism and reject the self-made. With rigid and roughly textured clay combined with soft raffia adornments inspired by traditional practices, these works reflect the contradictions in all of us, capable of love and hate, pain and joy. They stand as witnesses – celebrating, commemorating and holding each other accountable. Embracing community is complicated and full of friction, but through the pain and the joy your people are there, side by side.’ – Alfred Lowe

‘Kin is a new lighting series that marks my return to cloth, play and the quiet rituals of making passed down through the women in my family. Merging inherited crafts with my own design language, each lamp is personified, evoking the presence of my mother, grandmother, and myself. Crafted from inherited cotton cloth, hand-painted with reactive dyes, and adorned with glass beads and symbolic elements, Kin is a shared gesture of time, held in textile. With exposed seams and an internal steel frame, I celebrate the construction of the lampshade – revealing thread, dye and metal as quiet emblems of care, lineage and labour.’ – Marlo Lyda

‘Sourcing aluminium offcuts from suppliers to the automotive industry in Adelaide, I developed a series of iterative functional objects based on subtraction and reassembly. I consider the collection a proposal for rethinking standardisation in design. Formally, the objects reference tables, but leg heights and scales, which conventionally dictates a table’s purpose, have intentionally been subverted. I hope the final objects convey a sense of thoughtful, playful construction and composition, placing emphasis on adaptability through the use of adjustable mechanical fixings. Engaging with the legacy of modernism and Constructivism, I reduced elements to their simplest forms, while allowing things to be as they are.’ – Claire Markwick-Smith

‘A meditation on endurance, restriction, and release, Caged cabinet emerged from a deeply personal experience of physical confinement. Prompted by a life-altering brain tumour diagnosis, this work reflects a moment when time fractured, when the body, once a vessel of autonomy, became a site of uncertainty, resilience, and introspection. Through this piece, I invite viewers to confront the spaces in which we are held, and to consider how grace can take root even in the most challenging of times – asking: What does it mean to be caged, and what might it mean to be free?’ – Julian Leigh May

‘I started painting lorrkon (hollow log coffins) to challenge myself. For many years they have been used for containing the bones of deceased, but today we also paint them as beautiful sculptures. To harvest the logs, we go out bush and listen to the trees, we bang them to hear if they are heavy or light. Termites hollow them out naturally – so we’ve made this artwork together. We cut them and then they dry out for a few weeks. Then we take the skin [bark] off, sand it and then paint. My aunty and my mother taught me how to make that. I’m keeping our culture strong through painting, for my daughter and the next generations; I feel proud of my culture.’ – Simone Namunjdja

‘I use traditional ceramic vessels as both a formal and conceptual framework, transforming these historically significant forms into contemporary works I call ‘Trophies’. For me, vessels are more than containers – they hold memory, trace cultural exchange and honour ceramic heritage. By reinterpreting the vessel, I explore narratives that merge personal reflection with broader social commentary, navigating the epic history of ceramics across Eastern and Western traditions. Through experimentation, symbolism and cultural dialogue, I aim to blur boundaries between art and utility, past and present, private and communal, inviting viewers to consider the meaning and memory embedded in everyday objects.’ – Nathan Nhan

‘How do we hold stories, how do we contain memories? What are the secret histories embedded in materials, material processes, in a spatial narrative? Masque cabinets are performers sitting in dialogue, coupled characters in a choreography of parts that tie together space and stories, form and performance. Planar aluminium and cast metal are seamed with articulating axes, hinged panels, obscured veils. The formal expression is an investigation of movement and material threshold; the informal expression is one of a world concealed – a world charged with what Gaston Bachelard described as a “secret psychological life”.’ – Annie Paxton

‘I approach design with an endless curiosity and the mindset of a lifelong student. Each new material or process feels like an invitation to experiment and discover. While stainless steel has become a signature medium in my work, I’m equally drawn to the unexpected possibilities that arise when I let techniques evolve in new directions. This piece reflects my belief that design should celebrate both mastery and openness to change. I hope it inspires others to see objects not just as static forms, but as living records of exploration – each shaped by the hands, questions and wonder that brought them into being.’ – Douglas Powell

Anyw(c)here is a provocation at the intersection of utility, mobility and object ontology. A self-contained unit, the central tower integrates all the functional requirements of a bathroom into a single vertical structure, including plumbing, sink, toilet, shower and storage. Clad in salvaged marble, the exterior offers a tactile surface. Each piece of marble carries its own story, contributing to a layered narrative of reuse and reinvention. This work questions notions of permanence and architectural boundaries, inviting viewers to reconsider how we define and inhabit space. It also speaks to the legacy of architecture and how we might rethink material consumption through temporary, functional objects that allow for future adaptation.

‘These woven banana-fibre screens rethink spatial division within interiors. They offer adaptable, scalable boundaries that move, bend and join via a track system. In response to the need for higher density living, these screens function as soft architectural interventions, replacing static elements like walls, curtains and doors, while filtering light, absorbing sound and aiding thermoregulation. The use of banana fibre – a renewable, biodegradable byproduct of banana cultivation – reflects a commitment to rethinking waste and consumption. Naturally dyed with eucalyptus and iron, the panels carry visual references to the Bauhaus school and evoke its teachings of materiality, functionality and simplicity.’ – Emma Shepherd

‘Basalt shelf: Cadavre exquis considers the natural, cultural and built legacy of Victorian basalt, also known as bluestone. Sourced from demolished civic sites, these fragments carry both geological and colonial histories. In acknowledging this, their reuse and reframing as contemporary design seeks to reposition basalt, asking how design might serve as a vessel for cultural memory. Borrowing from Italian architect Aldo Rossi’s (1931–97) concept of the “significant place”, the work explores the semantic space between history and memory. The bookshelf becomes a symbolic scaffold, neither purely sculptural or functional, but where design and narrative intersect.’ – Dalton Stewart

‘This wall light honours the native bogong moth, once abundant in the Victorian Alps, whose moon-guided migrations marked important ceremonial times for Aboriginal people. Today, light pollution and environmental changes have led to the loss of 99.5 per cent of the moth’s population, disrupting ecosystems and cultural traditions. Made from layered eucalyptus bark – a key food source for the moth – this wall light evokes its habitat and former numbers. Soft backlighting symbolises the moonlight guiding migration, while shifting light intensity traces the moth’s dramatic decline in numbers. The work invites reflection on loss, resilience and renewal, and highlights the vital role of First Nations knowledge in protecting and sustaining Country.’ – Shahn Stewart

‘Emerging from an interest in making objects and furniture that invite exploration, Szafka is a tall, slender cabinet that uses drawers, doors and openings to display and contain objects – whether sentimental or ordinary. Named after the Polish word for ‘cabinet’, Szafka is made from the blackwood-timber doors of the original kitchen cabinetry in my childhood home. Using traditional joinery methods combined with contemporary tools and hand-work techniques, I have reworked the formerly bulky cabinet. By working vertically and subtracting material, the piece offers a relief from the oversized, weighty furniture of the past.’ – Georgie Szymanski

‘I imagine these vessels as speculative artefacts – future remnants of our planet that draw on deep geologic time, fossilisation and the ephemerality of existence. As a designer living in an age of mass production and ecological collapse, I explore future material and biological ecologies in my practice, envisioning futures that branch away from the moribund predictions of today. My process is material-led and labour-intensive; it’s antithetical to the mass produced. I employ slab-building, carving, coiling and hand-building methods. Each vessel is high-fired, inviting shifts in form, welcoming movement, dynamism, and the ferocity of heat and earthly elemental forces.’ – Kohl Tyler

‘Rebirthed is a collection of furniture created from discarded objects. Rebirthed pallet dine, table is constructed entirely from single-use pine pallets. After witnessing the large quantities of pine pallets being discarded in my home town, I developed both the table’s design and a new, broadly applicable timber rebirthing process. The minimal form of the table echoes the tree’s essence while balancing the visual busyness of the timber laminations, providing structural strength. Similarly, Cork rebirthed dine, chair was developed in response to large quantities of discarded steel-framed chairs with failing vinyl/leather upholstery. With these chairs, I have reconditioned the frames and replaced the upholstery with cork.’ – Isaac Williams