The tenth triennial Rigg Design Prize exhibition, showing at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne, highlights the achievements of Australian designers under the age of thirty-five working across ceramics, glass, furniture, woodwork, metalwork, textiles, lighting, and contemporary jewellery. With participants debuting new and ambitious works, the exhibition offers a window into the ideas, creative processes, and motivations of young designers, and presents a compelling survey of the most accomplished design being produced in Australia today.
Installation view, Rigg Design Prize 2025, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, 19 September 2025 – 1 February 2026. Photograph: Madeleine Burke
The winner of the $40,000 non-acquisitive prize, Australia’s most prestigious accolade for contemporary design, is Adelaide-based Aranda artist Alfred Lowe. His ambitious ceramic vessels, You and me, us never part, 2025, comprise two large-scale figurative ceramics combining rigid and roughly textured clay with soft raffia adornments, exploring beauty, community and Country. The ceramics stand side by side, each over one metre tall, and speak to the contradictions of love and hate, pain and joy through the friction of these materials.
The prize was judged by a jury of Australian industry leading experts and past Rigg Design Prize winners, including Marian Hosking, jewellery designer (winner of the 2012 Prize) Adam Goodrum, Australian industrial designer (winner of the 2015 Prize), Paul Hecker and Hamish Guthrie of Hecker Guthrie, Melbourne-based interior design firm (winner of the 2018 Prize), and Simone LeAmon, Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture (winner of the 2009 Prize).
On the winning work, the judges said: “We, the jury, are inspired by the ambitious scale and emotional resonance of Alfred’s large, figurative ceramic vessels. While grounded in ceramic traditions, Alfred’s work pushes decisively into contemporary territory – expressing his Aranda culture and identity in forms that enliven the storied history of design in this country. His work reminds us that design, at its most powerful, not only shapes material culture but also reawakens our connections to place and to people. We believe these works position Alfred’s practice as significant on a global stage. As an early-career practitioner, his work is inventive, accomplished and joyful, and signals a voice in contemporary Australian design with the power to contribute to international conversations on design and making in meaningful and enduring ways.”
Alfred Lowe, You and me, us never part I, 2025, raku clay, underglaze, raffia palm. Photograph: heyandy. Courtesy the artist and APY Art Centre Collective
The 2025 Rigg Design Prize finalists are: Patrick Adeney (VIC, Furniture), Kartika Laili Ahmad (WA, Lighting), Ella Badu (VIC, Jewellery), Walter Brooks (NT, Object Design), Dallissa Brown (NT, Ceramics), Andrew Carvolth (SA, Furniture), Nicola Charlesworth & Kim Stanek – Object Density (NSW, Furniture), Samantha Dennis (TAS, Jewellery), Carly Tarkari Dodd (SA, Jewellery), Hamish Donaldson (VIC, Glass), Jack Fearon – FEARON (QLD, Furniture), Olive Gill-Hille (WA, Furniture), Marcel Hoogstad Hay (SA, Glass), Katherine Hubble (VIC, Jewellery), Jay Jermyn (QLD, Lighting), Nicolette Johnson (QLD, Ceramics), Lavinia Ketchell (QLD, Object Design), Claudia Lau (VIC, Ceramics), Nicole Lawrence (VIC, Furniture), Julian Leigh May (VIC, Furniture), Alfred Lowe (SA, Ceramics), Marlo Lyda (NSW, Lighting), Claire Markwick-Smith (SA, Furniture), Simone Namunjdja (NT, Object Design), Nathan Nhan (ACT, Ceramics), Annie Paxton (VIC, Furniture), Douglas Powell – Duzi Objects (WA, Furniture), Amy Seo & Shahar Cohen – Second Edition (NSW, Furniture), Emma Shepherd – Sundance Studio (VIC, Weaving), Shahn Stewart – Alchemy Orange (VIC, Object Design), Dalton Stewart (VIC, Furniture), Georgie Szymanski (VIC, Furniture), Kohl Tyler (VIC, Ceramics), and Isaac Williams (TAS, Furniture).
Through their boundary-pushing approaches to materiality, form and function, early-career practitioners play an important role in the future of Australia’s design industries and creative culture. Bringing fresh perspectives, experimenting boldly with materials and processes, and demonstrating a commitment to excellence within their fields, the participants of the Rigg Design Prize 2025 are shaping the next chapter of Australia’s craft and design landscape.
The Rigg Design Prize 2025 is on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square, Melbourne, from 19 September 2025 to 1 February 2026.
