Ceramicist Alfred Lowe wins 2025 Rigg Design Prize

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The 2025 Rigg Design Prize has been awarded to Adelaide-based Aranda artist Alfred Lowe, whose striking ceramic installation, You and me, us never part, took out the $40,000 prize in what is widely regarded as Australia's most prestigious accolade for contemporary design. The announcement was made as the tenth edition of the triennial prize opened on 18 September.

This year's prize focused on Australian designers under 35 working across diverse disciplines including ceramics, glass, lighting, furniture, metalwork, jewellery, and textiles. Each of the 35 invited participants debuted new and ambitious work in the exhibition, offering insight into the ideas and processes shaping the future of Australian design.

Lowe's work, comprising two large-scale figurative vessels over one metre tall, combines rugged clay with soft raffia elements. The work explores the tensions between love and hate, pain and joy, and the enduring ties of community and Country.

"We, the jury, are inspired by the ambitious scale and emotional resonance of Alfred's large, figurative ceramic vessels," the jury stated. "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."

Lowe was unanimously selected by a jury of leading design professionals and past Rigg Prize winners including jewellery designer Marian Hosking; industrial designer Adam Goodrum; designers Paul Hecker and Hamish Guthrie of Hecker Guthrie; and Simone LeAmon, curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture at NGV.

"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," the jury concluded.

Selected from across Australia, the finalists invited by the NGV to compete for the $40,000 Rigg Design Prize 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 and Kim Stanek of Object Density (NSW, Furniture), Samantha Dennis (TAS, Jewellery), Carly Tarkari Dodd (SA, Jewellery), Hamish Donaldson (VIC, Glass), Jack Fearon of 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 of Duzi Objects (WA, Furniture), Amy Seo and Shahar Cohen of Second Edition (NSW, Furniture), Emma Shepherd of Sundance Studio (VIC, Weaving), Shahn Stewart of Alchemy Orange (VIC, Object Design), Dalton Stewart (VIC, Furniture), Georgie Szymanski (VIC, Furniture), Kohl Tyler (VIC, Ceramics), and Isaac Williams (TAS, Furniture).

The Rigg Design Prize is awarded every three years and comes with a $40,000 non-acquisitive cash prize. Established in 1994, the prize honours the legacy of the late Colin Rigg and has recognised over 100 Australian designers across a wide range of disciplines.

The Rigg Design Prize 2025 will be on display from 19 September 2025 to February 2026 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Fed Square, Melbourne.