Festival Director's Message

15 September 2021

Welcome to the 5th annual Sydney Craft Week Festival!

While we would love to be celebrating this festival right across Sydney as we have every year since 2017, it is a testament to the makers, the galleries, the people and the organisations who have worked very hard to create digital experiences that we can all enjoy at home or on a walk in our neighbourhoods. The creative capacity of every person involved in this year’s festival is extraordinary. Their resilience and determination ensures that we can have a festival in the midst of a long lockdown.

Making is part of our DNA. As humans we have always made things – to survive, to thrive and to enjoy. That value of craft is in our capacity to learn new skills, to make things we need and want as humans and to work out ways to make better things that honour our environment. Making helps us to progress and to slow down. The past 18 months have demonstrated how making with our hands helps us to be mentally healthy and withstand that challenges life has thrown at us. Whatever your definition of craft it is undeniable that it has immense value to people, communities and countries.

Sydney Craft Week is the first and only festival in Sydney dedicated to making by hand. This year is our 5th birthday! While we can't celebrate in a physical sense, all of the events are digital and there are some exhibitions that can be viewed from the street through gallery windows. We have 50+ events including including 20+ workshops and 16+ exhibitions along with some other special digital events. Special thanks to Festival Producer Fiona Pulford who worked with all the participants to 'pivot' their events to digital.

Enjoy browsing the website sydneycraftweek.com. Follow us on social media for craft news all year round.

We hope to see you all at Australian Design Centre – the Sydney Craft Week Festival HQ – when we reopen later in the year.

Until then have fun discovering the value craft brings to all of us as individuals and in our culture and society.

Lisa Cahill
Festival Director

Thank you!

A huge thank you to the City of Sydney for continued support this year with a festivals and events sponsorship grant that will now be carried forward to support the festival in 2022.

Thank you also to Skein Sisters, Digital Press, Signwave Newtown, ArtsHub and Eastside Radio for your generous support. Australian Design Centre thanks Sydney’s incredible craft and design community for helping to make this year’s digital festival such a success and to everyone in Sydney for enthusiastically embracing this festival. Many thanks also to Tina Fox for creating her work Gilding the Lily to reflect this year’s festival theme on the value of craft.

Sydney Craft Week is an initiative of Australian Design Centre. ADC is a not for profit impact organisation showcasing and supporting contemporary craft and design. All donations big and small help us to continue to create opportunities like Sydney Craft Week and help support our exhibitions, events and touring programs. Please consider a making a donation at australiandesigncentre.com/donate or contact Alix Fiveash at alix@australiandesigncentre.com.
The ADC Team is Georgie Avis, Laila Bazzi, Susannah Boothroyd, Felicity Brading, Rhadi Bryant, Lisa Cahill, Alix Fiveash, Michaela Gibiec, Fiona Pulford and Joni Taylor.

Australian Design Centre is proud to be a creative place located on Gadigal Land. We acknowledge with respect the traditional owners the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation.

Images: Lisa Cahill Portrait, 2020. Tina Fox, Gilding the Lily, 2021. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist.