Next in Design: Rigg Design Prize 2025

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The Rigg Design Prize is Australia’s most prestigious accolade for contemporary design. Since its inception in 1994, this triennial prize exhibition has featured over one hundred designers across a range of disciplines, celebrating their creative achievements and providing a valuable platform for visibility, recognition and impact. For its landmark tenth edition in 2025, the $40,000 prize will be awarded to an early-career Australian design practice, drawing attention to the new generation of talent. Bringing together emerging designers, the exhibition spans ceramics, glass, furniture, woodwork, metalwork, textiles, lighting and contemporary jewellery, presenting ambitious works that reflect bold approaches to materiality, form and function.

Early-career practitioners play a crucial role in shaping Australia’s design ecosystem and culture. They bring bold ideas and fresh perspectives that challenge conventions and expand the possibilities of design and making. The Rigg Design Prize 2025 – Next in Design – recognises the energy, ingenuity and vision of emerging designers who are making important contributions to their fields.

 

Designer Statement

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‘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