For its landmark tenth edition in 2025, the Rigg Design Prize champions early-career Australian design practice, drawing attention to the new generation of talent.
In a special event, presented in partnership with Deakin University, curator of the Rigg Design Prize 2025 Simone LeAmon hosts a conversation with the winner, Alfred Lowe, alongside finalist Nicole Lawence, and Senior Lecturer Visual Communication Design at Deakin University, Meghan Kelly, to consider how Australia’s design culture continues to evolve through the energy of its emerging designer–makers and practitioners whose early careers are forging new connections between materials, ideas and cultural expression.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Alfred Lowe is an Aranda person from Snake Well in the central desert, north of Alice Springs. Relocating to Adelaide, he commenced his artistic practice in 2021 at the Indigenous-owned APY Studio. Working with clay and fibre, Lowe makes organic vessels and figurative forms that explore beauty, community and Country. His use of texture and sgraffito carving reflects the landscape of Central Australia.
Nicole Lawrence is a designer and fabricator whose practice revolves around the expressive potential of metal. With over a decade of technical experience, she brings together training in gold and silversmithing and industrial design from Melbourne Polytechnic and RMIT University, Melbourne, informing her nuanced approach to production.
Professor Meghan Kelly is Head of the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. Her research examines the diverse ways identity and representation can be created through design, with an aim of probing how to empower people with self-determining their own visual representation. Meghan has recently published a book titled Codesign: People, Participation and Practices co-authored with Professor Simone Taffe, and is working with Associate Professor Veronika Kelly on a book examining Women in Design Practices. Together with Dr Russell Kennedy, Meghan co-authored the Australian Indigenous Design Charter, winner of the Good Design Award (Indigenous Design) 2018, the International Indigenous Design Charter (winner of the Premier Design Award (Design Strategy), and Premier Design Award of the Year 2018.
Simone LeAmon A curator, designer and educator for near to three decades, she is Adjunct Professor in the School of Design and Social Context, RMIT University and the recipient of the 2021 Good Designs Australia, Women in Design Award, for her life-long passion and unwavering dedication to the design profession in Australia. Between 2015–2025, LeAmon held the role of the inaugural Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) working on an extensive program of exhibitions and events, including the annual Melbourne Design Week (2017-23) and Melbourne Design Fair (2022-23). Exhibitions include: NGV Triennial(curatorium) (2017, 2020 & 2023); Melbourne Now (2013 & 2023); MECCA X NGV Women in Design Commission(2022 & 2023); History in the Making (2022); Rigg Design Prize (2015, 2018, 2022, 2025); Lucy McRae: Body Architect (2019); Black Bamboo: Contemporary Bamboo Furniture Design From Mer (2019); and Designing Women(2018).
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https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/program/designers-in-conversation/?utm_medium=advertising&utm_source=self+serve+meta&utm_campaign=programs&utm_content=standard&utm_term=awareness
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